Cake
Directed by Nisha Ganatra

By Travis Mackenzie Hoover

Why is it that “chick flicks” are always worse to women than “guy movies,” and in the guise of “you go girl” empowerment? This would-be comedy pretends to be sympathetic to the pushing-30 single woman, here embodied by a travel writer named Pippa (Heather Graham) who suddenly has to replace her ailing father as the editor of a wedding magazine. But though it lets her air her grievances against the culture of marriage guilt, it becomes increasingly obvious that she’s afraid to feel and just needs someone to share her… blah, blah, blah.

To this end, the film enlists uptight co-worker Ian (David Sutcliffe), who seems to have been chosen for knowing her better than herself (i.e., by acting like a supercilious jerk). That the perpetrators of this fantasy are women boggle the mind, as it takes every horrible stereotype about single women and puts them on a gilded pedestal, but thankfully they’re also so cosmically inept that they fail to sell the deal.

Though the filmmakers imagine themselves to be deathlessly hip with their futons and Baudrillard references, they make the gang on Sex and the City look like the Algonquin Round Table with outrageously lame jokes and stumblebum comic timing. This is one of those movies where you can identify the token lesbian by the fact that she has short hair, or gauge the maturity of a character by the fact that they like antiques. It’s a series of ludicrous clichés masquerading as the plain truth that’s only funny when it’s trying not to be.

I can’t imagine who would buy this crock, but the fact that it exists is a sad statement on how far movies still have to go. (TVA)

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