This is the only feature film directed by Mary Stuart Masterson, who is better known as an actress. It is a moody film set in an obscure town in America, and the characters in the story are what one could politely call 'significantly boorish' members of a vague, aimless underclass of society. Bruce Dern plays an oafish man so well one worries. In this twilight world of overly 'ordinary people' there lives a young girl who is dying of an incurable muscular wasting disease. She is bravely attempting to finish high school, but can barely stand up or walk. When she walks down the corridor of her high school, she has to lean against the walls to avoid falling. She has no self-pity and she carries on, in her hopelessly crippled fashion, as if she were a perfectly normal person without any disability. Her courage is simply astounding. However, her personality is suffused with such overwhelming melancholy that the story is absolutely heart-rending. She is desperate to know love before she dies, and she seeks it in the arms of a boy played by Aaron Stanford. The young actress Kristen Stewart (then aged 17, but who started in films as a child actress so that she was already greatly experienced) delivers an outstanding performance worthy of several Oscars as the dying girl. You will need lots of tissues or handkerchiefs if you watch this one, because it is one of the great weepies of all time. Masterson has really delivered an overwhelmingly emotional tale, and with Kristen Stewart's central performance, it must be said that this film is a classic.
Review of The Cake Eaters
