"The Cake Eaters" mistakes characters and story quirks for character and story development.
This low-key drama tries so hard to be different — and quirky — that at times its characters turn into caricatures instead.
Also, there's a definite lack of energy and the material feels more familiar, more stale than its creators obviously intended.
But what makes the film most disappointing is that it features the kind of cast that really could have done something good with first-rate material.
The film looks at two rural American families. The Kimbroughs are led by family patriarch Easy (Bruce Dern).
This aging widower's youngest son is a high school cafeteria worker nicknamed "Beagle" (Aaron Stanford). And his older son, Guy (Jayce Bartok), has just returned home after failing at a music career.
The Kaminskis aren't finding life much easier. Georgia (Kristen Stewart) is a teen with a physically debilitating condition.
Facing the possibility of an agonizing, slow death, Georgia is determined to live life to the fullest. She's recently befriended the socially awkward Beagle, much to her family's dismay.
"Cake Eaters" is a collaborative effort between actors Mary Stuart Masterson, who directed, and Bartok, who wrote the screenplay. Their relative inexperience shows, and the cast struggles more than it should with the material as a result of that.
Stanford, who's usually steady and dependable, doesn't seem to have a grasp on whom his character is supposed to be.
Also, a tentative romance between Beagle and Georgia is forced on us when we'd much rather investigate the dynamics of the relationship between Easy and Marg (Elizabeth Ashley), Georgia's spunky grandmother.
Worse, we're not quite sure what to make of another subplot: Georgia's mother, Violet (Talia Balsam) photographs the girl in semi-revealing outfits, yet tries to keep her cooped up most of the time. It seems exploitative and is pretty creepy,
"The Cake Eaters" is rated R and features some strong sexual language (profanity, vulgar slang and other suggestive talk), drug references and content (medicines and injections), a brief sex scene (mostly implied), and other sexual contact, derogatory language and slurs (involving disabilities), and some brief but disturbing and gory imagery (animal butchering). Running time: 87 minutes.
E-mail: jeff@desnews.com