Weekly Review -- Happily ever after?

Cake (2005) -- Most romantic comedies operate on a mixture of several crucial factors. Some of these elements would be a vibrant screenplay, chemistry between the actors and characters we can either a) root for b) relate to or a combination of a) and b). Nisha Ganatra's romantic comedy is an attempt at a more analytical and feminist version of the traditional romcom; however, it never really gets off the ground. Travel writer Pippa McGee (Heather Graham) starts working as editor at one of her father's (Bruce Gray) magazines. Trouble is, the magazine is "Wedding Bells" and Pippa is a notorious commitment-phobe; in her own words, she has never had a relationship that lasted more than one month. Enter Ian (David Sutcliffe), vice president of the McGee Group, and freelance photographer Hemingway (Taye Diggs), both of whom seduce Pippa in various ways. Soon a love triangle is in the works, while we are following Pippa's ruminations on marriage and singledom. Graham elicits audiences' cheers as Pippa, whose happy-go-lucky demeanor hides the effects of some extremely painful events from the past. There are nice turns by Sandra Oh and Cheryl Hines, as the best friend and uptight you-know-what we love to hate, respectively. The male characters are one of the problematic points of the script. Ian's repression is never fully explored -- one descriptive sentence does not cut it -- and Sutcliffe does not have the charisma to pull off the emotions we would expect such a man to be going through. Diggs, on the other hand, has plenty of charm and boyish charisma, but his character is bland and mostly there for a fling. Another problem with the script is the lack of situations it puts the characters in. It seems to me that they spend half of the movie talking and, if a romcom is to be successful, the stakes have to be higher for the characters and they have to be facing more obstacles to get to their objective. Cake is a watchable confection but, with this subject matter, it should have been truly delectable.

5/10