Absolution in love - The Cake Eaters

In a backwater town in upstate New York, Georgia Kaminski (Kristin Stewart), a teenage girl with a terminal nervous disorder, finds herself torn between the frivolity of her grandmother (Elizabeth Ashley) and overly protective mother who, in the hopes of bringing awareness and humanity to her daughter's disease, takes controversial photos of Georgia in the nude. Several miles away, aspiring musician Guy Kimbrough (Jayce Bartok) returns to the house of estranged father Easy (Bruce Dern) and younger brother Beagle (Aaron Stanford), trying to hide the secret of his failure to make it big. Easy is the town butcher, recently widowed, with secrets of his own, while Beagle, the kid who never left home, has surrendered his life to the care of his father and late mother, and struggles to find an identity of his own. Kaminskis and Kimbroughs conjoin dramatically when Georgia, hoping to find love in her life, and to find it before it's too late, courts the affection of Beagle, whom she meets at an outdoor flea market. The innocent but contentious relationship causes a series of reckonings, as both families are forced to contend with the heaps of emotional baggage that have piled up in their lives.

Masterson keeps it real with this one. The drama is understated, the tension is subtle, and the characters are both distinct and believable. Hats off to Kristin Stewart, who manages to be a dozen things at once – tragic but not pitiful, strong, endearing, funny, unconventionally sexy, and none of the clichés we've grown to associate with any of Hollywood's notorious mental illnesses. Remaining hats to Bruce Dern, a long-time favorite of mine, who keeps a lid on things and never fails to command our respect, even as his character slides deeper into dubious behavior.

In many ways, the film's strengths almost become its undoing. The sustained, understated quality of the storytelling prevents the movie from having any kind of real climax, and the immaculate tension set up in the first hour of the movie never quite pays off in a way I would like. That said, it's still a beautiful film, a capstone of movie-making maturity, and deserves the widest audience possible.

I love independent movies but to be honest I watched The Cake Eaters because of Kristin Stewart. I've seen quite a few of her movies in the last weeks and aside from that Twilight crap I've came to the conclusion that she's a great actress and her performance in this film is no exception.Here she plays Georgia Kaminski,a teenager that suffers from Friedreich's ataxia, a genetic disease that causes damage to the nervous system among other things.Her mother Elizabeth is overzealous and her grandmother, Marg, is her escape.She doesn't have that much time and wants to experience love before its too late. She meets Beagle,played by Aaron Stanford, a shy 20 year old who works in the school cafeteria,they quickly bond and become close and she decides to loose her virginity to him.Beagle is part of the The Kimbrough family.Easy is the patriarch and he's grieving over the recent loss of his wife,Guy is the older son who has been away from the family and just returned after learning that his mother had passed away, and Beagle is the youngest son. The film explores the lives of this two interconnected families. The Cake Eaters is independent film-making at his best,my only complaint is that the movie was too short. How many times do you hear that? Exactly, the movie was that good. I just feel like the story could have been explored more and it could had been taken to another level.I don't know why the director didn't push the envelope a little,he clearly knew what he was doing and the story had great potential; don't take me wrong,this is a very good movie, I just think with more running time it could have been a tremendous movie. Kristin Stewart's performance is truly incredible.When playing characters with these type of diseases, there's always a tendency to overact or go over the top but she played this role perfectly.The academy award nominee Bruce Dern who played Easy was great as well. A great piece of work that left me wanting more.

7.5/10

It deals with human relationships in their particular circumstances. Each of these two families has special conditions. In the past, as well as over time, we like to see the continuation of the film at the middle, but it seems that the film suddenly loses its feature and leaves us with an entirely unfinished one. In fact, one of the three parts of the film's effect is left to the end that is surprising. Kristine Stewart, in the role of Georgia, plays a fantastic role and satisfactory view of the character of the story, and to some extent the core of the film finds out with his story and circumstances. A girl who has a nerve system disorder and her movement status is severely affected by her illness and does not have much time to live until she comes to the conclusion that she will continue to live in a different way. He is looking for a relationship with Dwight, but not in a love affair, but just for experience and happening. On the other hand, the father of Dwight, who recently lost his wife, is moving forward with the grandmother of Georgia in the past, and the confrontation between these two events led to a story that spells the way in the final sequences of the film Depicting where the father of Dwight and the grandmother of Georgia share with each other what is happening. Despite the fascination of the story, we did not witness the endearing and fruitful of the film.

I have been waiting for this movie from a very long time. Wait is a worthwhile, and i thoroughly enjoyed this one. Mary Stuart Masterson has captured complete concentration from the audience. You can watch this movie if your feeling low or even good.

This movie is about love and relationship. If you are physically unfit, you are not going to loose out of love and its wonderfully portrayed by Kristen Stewart. Overall your heart will float in a sea of joy.

Kristen Stewart is amazing, she takes a through a journey of kind bigheartedness and love. She definitely has a bright future and a long career. The storyline is perfect which contains emotions and humor.

Aaron Stanford is equally good in his own way. A piece of work through which you will fell good for at least a day. Cheers!!!!

In this superbly rendered drama from Mary Stuart Masterson, two small-town families find their lives unexpectedly intertwined when the quiet, socially awkward Beagle Kimbrough (Aaron Stanford) invites the romantic attentions of Georgia Kaminski (Kristen Stewart), a young girl with a rare but terminal nervous disease who knows her window of opportunity is rapidly closing. Much to the chagrin of her domineering mother, and the chilly audits of her otherwise zesty grandmother, Georgia decides to follow her feelings to wherever it is they lead her. Meanwhile, Beagle's older brother Guy (Jayce Bartok), the wayward son, returns from a dead-end bid to become a musician and struggles to reconcile himself with estranged father Easy (Bruce Dern) the town butcher, whose wife (Guy and Beagle's mother) has recently passed away.

There are so many points in this movie where a less steady hand might have foundered the effort, either by overplaying the sentiment card, or by trying to hard to push the tragic undertones, but the film finds an immaculate balance, that golden middle-of-the-road equilibrium that just gets rarer the more time goes by. The characters are so genuine, their stories so real, that the film exacts an impact that is no less raw, and no less memorable, than the trials and tribulations of families we know in life.

The first scene offers a perfect illustration of everything that's right with the movie: Beagle and Easy sit across from each other at the breakfast table, Easy contemplating such bold measures as changing his breakfast cereal, Beagle listening, responding in monosyllables, almost without thinking, and from this one tiny encounter we glean the whole spectrum of what their relationship has become – perfunctory, habitual, and void of energy.

With writing this precise, and with performances so nuanced and natural that all of Hollywood's clichés are swept under the carpet without so much as a whimper, the stage is set for perfection.

Which is what this movie is – perfection.