For the first few blissful cake-filled barhops, Sitting in Bars With Cake sells a tale of sweet, tempered rom-com shenanigans. As promised, the haze soon lifts to reveal rich layers of darker storytelling beneath its sweet frosting and a decaying relationship brimming with tender grief. These denser layers ultimately overpower the rest of this film’s delights, but not without executing a profoundly devastating look at female friendship and loss.
Whatever way you cut the cake, this film is a flavour profile of storytelling highs and lows until the very last bite.
Baked Goods for the Barhop
Off-kilter in its opening beats, Sitting in Bars With Cake initially comes across like a rom-com going through the motions as it introduces Yara Shahidi’s quirky, shy Jane with her horrendous fashion sense and inability to make small talk. The basic plot escalates slowly like molasses. It takes detours to introduce Odessa A’zion’s outgoing Corinne and her workplace ambitions that Bette Midler’s intimating headhunter actively ignores. For a fleeting time, the contemporary setup and offbeat jokes may flatline the concept of “cake-barring” before we can even get to the bar.
However, this premise lights the spark once it stumbles into Los Angeles’ nightlife.
Once the film switches gears into a fun girl’s night romp, the small triumphs come quickly to this ensemble as Jane’s face lights up in the wake of a man complimenting her use of sour cream. Corinne sings atop the bar in a killer red number as the self-proclaimed extrovert gears up for her grand plan to get Jane a thriving social life through her baking skills. Shahidi and A’zion’s chemistry as lifelong friends begins to fester as something tangible and beautiful. Sometimes, moving the story along takes a classic cake-baking montage and a slow-mo walk-in.
And for a fleeting time, those cheesy gimmicks are the beating heart of this film’s success as Jane’s group of faceless friends explore LA’s quirkiest bars. This comedic tour de cake highlights include a sweet meet-cute with a bartender. He discusses the best icing tip to use, only for Jane to realize hilariously after a horrifying dick pic incident that by tip, he meant something else. Even as the plot introduces Corinne’s tumour, its antics continue to escalate in fun ways as she pushes Jane to her breaking point with a drawer of elaborate lingerie and her self-organized cancer fundraiser.
Once Corinne’s eccentric, overbearing parents (played by Ron Livingston and Martha Kelly) step into the picture, everything clicks effortlessly into place as a contemporary comedic banter carries this anti rom-com drama effortlessly into the third act.
Hotcakes for the Hospital
Alas, Sitting in Bars With Cake isn’t a rom-com, no matter how much it may seem to be. And there lies the most beautiful and detrimental aspect of this self-described drama.
As the film stumbles into the truth of Corinne’s illness and deteriorating health, it does not look back at the fun bar montages or the light romantic elements of this film. In some ways, it is one of the most devastating, heartfelt performances you can watch this year. Once the story embraces the angst, we settle into a much more mature and grounded drama willing to do the heavy lifting.
However, that also means there is no balance between the rom-com Sitting in Bars With Cake wants to be and the dense contemporary drama it has to be. The genre change is jarring, and Jane all but relinquishes her romantic progress with her cute coworker and bar hookups by the final act to focus on Corinne. The film also offers no closure to the festering storyline with Corinne’s ex. Instead, all romantic threads the first act works to establish evaporate as if they never happened.
There’s no balance between romance, drama, or comedy. Ultimately, this movie never quite learns how to be more than one thing at a time when it has the potential to be so multifaceted.
The third act does, however, double down on the friendship at the heart of this film. It is a choice that saves it from succumbing entirely to genre whiplash. As the knife twists and Jane realizes her life decided to get good the moment Corinne’s started to come apart, the poignancy of these preestablished relationships gets excavated with stabbing precision. There isn’t a more potent, poignant chemistry to capitalize on here, and the subtly of Shahidi and A’zion’s performances come into sharp focus as the two cling to each other for salvation. Add in the comedic vivaciousness of Corinne’s parents, and this decline into grief is devastating to watch.
It is nearly impossible to get through their final cake montage without crying; this film’s emotional warfare is decisive.
Tiramisu for Our Tears
As the final shots of this film depict a friend who knows she has to live her life to the fullest for the friend who couldn’t, you cannot help but tear up. Despite the pitfalls that plague this film’s pacing, it was clearly a project that creator Audrey Shulman made with love.
At its heart is a depiction of a genuine friendship and the acknowledgment that people like Jane deserve a Corinne who will fight for them to take up space. That brief shot of Jane, our shy girlie, chatting to customers holds a gravitas all introverts can understand. If you watch this film for anything, let it be this beautiful exploration of female companionship that sets aside all other ambitions to ensure its two leads have us in emotional pieces by the end of this cake-filled journey. In an industry hellbent on pumping out manufactured franchise successes, a little sincerity can go a long way in storytelling.
With Sitting in Bars With Cake, you come for the nuanced performances and stay for the delicious depictions of cake you will desperately want to recreate.
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Sitting in Bars With Cake premieres on Prime Video on September 8th.
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