a sweet story

Sitting in Bars with Cake is light and fluffy look at female friendship

Bringing a friendship to life in movie requires a special kind of chemistry from the actors. While romance can be difficult as well, that has certain advantages the regular friendships do not. The new film Sitting in Bars with Cake uses a range of storytelling tricks to get audiences to believe in its lead characters, with varying results.

Jane (Yara Shahidi) and Corinne (Odessa A’zion) are best friends, roommates, and co-workers at Capitol Records in Los Angeles. Jane, known for her baked goods, brings a birthday cake for Corinne to a bar, an act that grabs the attention of other bar patrons, especially men. Inspired, the two come up with a plan for Jane to meet men by making a variety of cakes and serving them at bars.

That plan has its ups and downs, not least because Jane can never seem to meet someone she like as much as another Capitol co-worker, Owen (Rish Shah). The plan meets another roadblock when Corinne starts to have a health crisis. The friends’ bond is both enhanced and tested as Jane attempts to continue their tradition, care for Corinne, and pursue romance at the same time.

Directed by Trish Sie and written by Audrey Shulman (based on her real-life story), the film is mostly as light and fluffy as the cakes Jane serves. For most of the film, it seems as if the filmmakers are studiously avoiding any kind of big emotions. So, while it’s perfectly pleasant watching the friends having fun and trying to pick up guys, the deep connections that a story like this needs never materialize.

When the film gets to the heavier part of its plot, the lack of feeling starts to become more evident. The introduction of Corinne’s parents, Fred (Ron Livingston) and Ruth (Martha Kelly), weirdly doesn’t help matters, as their relationship with each other and their daughter feels off from the start. Bette Midler is cast as Benita, Corinne’s boss, but is used so infrequently and oddly that it’s confusing why the character exists at all.

This failure to communicate emotionally is a shame because it might have been a winner in more capable hands. The transition from fun to dramatic has been done well in many other movies, but the filmmakers here don’t make the necessary tweaks to take the story from okay to great. Even the cake part of the film is not given as much attention as you might think.

Shahidi, best known for her roles in both Black-ish and Grown-ish, is a very appealing lead, giving Jane a positive/determined personality without ever become annoying. A’zion is not quite as good, but she eventually settles in to her role. Livingston and Kelly never gel in their performances, with Kelly’s signature monotone preventing the character from being believable.

While Sitting in Bars with Cake is inoffensive and has some interesting moments, it never offers up anything that would make you want to return to it. A friendship like the one depicted should be life-affirming, but all it elicits is a few smiles and a shrug.

$Odessa A\u2019zion and Yara Shahidi in Sitting in Bars with Cake$

Photo by Saeed Adyani/Prime Video

Odessa A’zion and Yara Shahidi in Sitting in Bars with Cake.

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Sitting in Bars with Cake streams on Prime Video starting on September 8.

movies film

Holidays Are Here

Ben Stiller delivers lighthearted fun in new Hulu movie Nutcrackers

Photo courtesy of Nutcracker Productions LLC/Hulu

Ben Stiller, Atlas Janson, Homer Janson, and Ulysses Janson in Nutcrackers.

A holiday-themed comedy seems like just what the doctor ordered right now, and the new Hulu film Nutcrackers steps up with a little mayhem, heartfelt sentiment, and a nod to traditions. But it doesn't add up to a memorable experience.

The film stars Ben Stiller as Mike, a high-powered Chicago architect with little time for anybody but himself whose sister and brother-in-law are recently deceased. He is supposedly there to place his four nephews — Justice (Homer Janson), Simon (Arlo Janson), Steve (Ulysses Janson), and Samuel (Atlas Janson) — into foster care. But social worker Gretchen (Linda Cardellini) informs Mike that the foster family has fallen through, and he needs to act as guardian until she can find someone else.

Whether they’re still reeling from their parents’ deaths or are just wild in general, the kids prove to be more than a handful for Mike, who always has one eye on the door, hoping to get back to his own life as soon as possible. But the longer he’s forced to stay, the more the kids grow on him, especially when he learns that at least two of them were students at their mom’s dance studio, giving him an idea to stage a version of a certain holiday classic.

Directed by David Gordon Green and written by Leland Douglas, the film would seem to have all the elements that make a holiday film memorable, but the vibe is off right from the start. First of all, the audience is thrown right into the mix along with Mike, with barely any introduction to the main characters. As their backstories are mostly missing, it’s difficult to feel anything — good or bad — about Mike or the kids, and so they just kind of co-exist for the first act of the film.

Green and Douglas can also never decide what kind of people they want the kids to be. The film starts with a scene of them sneaking into an amusement park and causing havoc, and subsequent scenes make it seem like they’re supposed to be hellions. But when the filmmakers start going back-and-forth between them wrecking things and being responsible, down-to-earth kids, the plot thread gets confusing and less interesting.

It’s also perplexing why they would cast Stiller, who’s been known to play straight-laced characters who go off the rails on many occasions, and then not let him do what he does best. Even when confronted with some of the kids’ worst behavior, Mike keeps his reactions in check, which may be good for a real-life uncle, but makes for a less-than-entertaining holiday family film.

Stiller still lives up to his star-billing at times, but the arc of his character is not that inspiring, even when a slight romance starts to bloom between Mike and Gretchen. The Janson brothers, who are making their collective film debut, are fun at times, but their lack of experience shows in their unpolished performances. Cardellini is a nice presence, but she’s not given enough to do to make a big impact.

Nutcrackers is an inoffensive movie in that it’s not so terrible that there’s no way to actually finish it. But there’s little in its story, characters, or attempt to be a holiday movie that can be recommended as a fun family watch, so it’s likely to fade away into streamer oblivion.

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Nutcrackers is now streaming on Hulu.