Cake

Executive producer Jennifer Aniston finally lays Rachel to rest.

"Don't love me," she's saying. "Watch me."

This is acting from the deepest canyons of despair. Find a character with no redeeming features and stay true to her neuroses for 100 minutes. The Awards Season beckons.

The story may be fragmented and back to front, but it cannot be dismissed as mundane. Claire (Aniston) is addicted to pain killers. The survivor of a car crash she is scarred and broken, still able to walk but not drive. Her long suffering Mexican maid, Silvana (Adriana Barraza), adds chauffeur to her list of duties.

Claire's sympathetic husband has been given the boot and so she uses the gardener for rudimentary servicing occasionally. When not obsessed with life's cruel twist of fate she's thinking about her friend, Nina (Anna Kendrick), who jumped off a bridge in L.A.

Nina appears as a ghost. She was young and beautiful unlike Claire who has let herself go. Why she killed herself remains a mystery, leaving a perfectly decent husband and five-year-old daughter in pieces.

Will Claire follow her example? Will she seduce Nina's husband? Will she treat Silvana so badly she leaves? Will she be arrested for smuggling drugs across the border? Will memories/flashbacks drown her in grief?

The trouble is you don't care. Claire is a selfish bitch and Aniston cannot be faulted for her portrayal.

The fact that you want to stay well away and keep out of her sight is a compliment. The performance is the film. It doesn't make the experience of paying to watch it any easier.