Brian Eggert Deep Focus Review Mar 4, 2022 2/4

Cake wants to be edgy and genuine, to expose raw and visceral feelings. But it keeps from mining the most searing dramatic soil because, given the nature of the tragedy which it orbits, confronting them head-on may prove uncomfortable to audiences.

Go to Full Review

Nick Levine NME (New Musical Express) May 27, 2021 3.5/5

Driven by Aniston's well-judged balance of intensity and restraint, it's an affecting film.

Go to Full Review

Richard Crouse Richard Crouse Feb 2, 2021 3/5

A great showcase for the new, dramatic Aniston but it isn't a great film. In it's final moments the movie grasps for a feel good ending which is just slightly out of reach.

Go to Full Review

Leo Brady AMovieGuy.com Jan 31, 2021 2/4

Cake is lacking any of the flavor that would be needed to make this film sweet. The weak screenplay only gives us a sliver of our characters. What we want is an entire piece.

Go to Full Review

Nicholas Bell IONCINEMA.com Jul 18, 2019 2.5/5

It's refreshing to see the talented actress working outside the studio system in a performance that stands out as one of her best to date. Unfortunately, the rest of the film feels like one big, bland pity-party.

Go to Full Review

Ellen Dwyer One Room With A View May 16, 2019 3/5

Cake is an emotionally moving film carried by Aniston's sharp performance; however its shallow treatment of relationships means it fails to be more than the sum of its parts.

Go to Full Review

Beth McDonough The Babbling Blonde May 10, 2019 A

Cake is mostly a melancholy, tragically stunning film, with a groundbreaking performance by Aniston and enough biting humor and heart to create the perfect balance it needs to make a lasting impression.

Go to Full Review

Julie Crawford North Shore News (Vancouver, B.C.) Apr 18, 2019 7/10

Aniston's performance is the essential ingredient that makes the film worth watching even as other elements prove half-baked.

Go to Full Review

Julia Alexander CineVue Apr 4, 2019 2/5

Barnz's Cake could have been an intriguing look into the world of chronic pain and depression, but trying to be a jack-of-all-trades ruined the film and left it a master of none.

Go to Full Review

Bernard Boo Way Too Indie Mar 19, 2019 6/10

The reason the process isn't compelling is because it's a bridge to nowhere; Cake is monotonous, rudderless, and doesn't make any real statements about depression, suicide, or the act of grieving.

Go to Full Review

Rosalynn Try-Hane Battle Royale With Cheese Aug 21, 2018

Cake is well a little plain without icing and this film lacked the icing.

Go to Full Review

Camilla Long Sunday Times (UK) Feb 15, 2018 4/5

Aniston isn't brilliant because she managed not to wear make-up or not to wash her hair. She is brilliant because with every inch of her body she conveys pain. She's creepy, rigid, a plotline -- as a recovering invalid -- in her own right.

Go to Full Review

Matt Wolf The Arts Desk Nov 20, 2017 2/5

Aniston can't find within herself sufficient emotional colours to shade our response to one of life's victims who may have in some way contributed to her cavalcade of ills.

Go to Full Review

M. Faust The Public (Buffalo) Oct 17, 2017

Aniston gives a good performance, but she's photographed like a star from Old Hollywood, where glamour always trumped character.

Go to Full Review

Brigit Grant Daily Express (UK) Aug 18, 2017 4/5

Submerged in her character's physical limitations and mental anguish, Aniston gets it right whether grimacing in pain or recoiling in anger and if Meryl Streep, Hilary Swank or Julia Roberts had played the part, I know they'd be up for an Oscar.

Go to Full Review

Lisa Rosman Signature Aug 3, 2017

Cake is a particular disappointment, though the blame cannot entirely be assigned to Jennifer Aniston.

Go to Full Review

John Powers Vogue Apr 26, 2017

Aniston's Claire takes a claustrophobic emotional journey that's at once too neat and too cute.

Go to Full Review

Molly Haskell Film Comment Magazine Feb 15, 2017

It will be a pity if viewers are too put off by the subject to see Aniston's bravura turn, a tour de force that also tells us something about what we can and can't accept in women's performances, our threshold for unlikability and unprettiness.

Go to Full Review

Mark Jackson Epoch Times Jun 11, 2016 3/5

Think 'Nurse Jackie' reincarnated as a lawyer. The blatant Oscar-bid timing reduces the effectiveness of Aniston's performance rather a lot. It manufactures high expectations.

Go to Full Review

Dee O'Donoghue Film Ireland Magazine May 12, 2016 2.5/5

Despite a formidable and kaleidoscopic performance, there is a sense that the themes of human frailty and the will to heal that inform the film's narrative are beyond Aniston's abilities as a serious dramatic actress.

Go to Full Review