Review: Sitting in Bars with Cake

Our real lives don’t neatly fit into purely happy or purely sad — and films shouldn’t have to either — but Sitting in Bars with Cake wants to have its, umm, cake and eat it too. Based on a true story, this comedic drama (dramatic comedy?) gets off to a breezy and bright start when 20-something wallflower Jane (Yara Shahidi) is pushed by her best friend, Corinne (Odessa A’zion), into baking cakes and bringing them to L.A. bars to meet men. The cavalcade of cakes — chocolate chili, apple stack, sage ricotta — is interrupted by tragedy, when Corinne receives a shocking diagnosis that upends both of the BFFs’ lives. The film still wants to give the audience Instagram-worthy shots of the layered desserts and Jane’s attempts at romance, interspersing them with the drama of Corinne’s trips to the hospital, but it ends up feeling like two entirely separate movies that were mashed together without much thought for balance or tone.

Adrienne Shelly’s Waitress did this ably, melding its charming romance, friendship, and all those pies (sigh) with a bit of sadness to create the perfect bittersweet mix. Those elements never come together in Sitting in Bars with Cake. Audrey Shulman based the screenplay on her own experiences and book of the same name, which appears to focus on the cakes and men she meets, rather than on her best friend’s illness. Sitting in Bars with Cake can’t really decide on what it is or who it’s about. It begins as very much Jane’s movie, with Corinne in the secondary role as her best friend, then shifts to being more about both of them, while still feeling uneven in its perspective.

We meet Shahidi’s Jane at a party, where she’s off to the side and dressed to fade into the background. She struggles to connect with everyone there and with her crush at the office, Owen (Rish Shah), but Corinne — her outgoing best friend, roommate, and coworker at a talent agency — has the solution to her shyness. Every week, Jane will bring a cake to a new spot around L.A., and men will finally notice how amazing she is. (This requires a typical suspension of disbelief: you have to buy that heterosexual dudes would only be interested in someone as stunning as Shahidi if she bribes them with cake. But I digress.) They plot out a whole year — 50 cakes, plus time off for holidays — across the city’s watering holes, charting Jane’s progress. But just when Jane is beginning to come out of her shell, Corinne is diagnosed with a serious illness, and Jane vows to care for her through her treatment.

Director Trish Sie (Pitch Perfect 3) adds some fun visual flourishes, particularly in the treatment of the cakes, but outside of Jane and Corinne, the people on screen don’t receive as much attention. The various desserts — like red velvet with cream cheese frosting, cherry CBD THC cake, and carrot cardamom cake with maple frosting — are more interesting and better defined than most of the characters. (Except for the “licorice and leather” cake, because what the fuck is that and why doesn’t the film elaborate on it?!) There’s a subplot about Jane’s lack of desire to follow in her parents’ footsteps as lawyers, but there’s no tension in that thread. Her romantic pursuits are equally underdeveloped, earning zero investment from Jane or the audience in literally any of these guys.

A movie that prioritizes female friendship and glamor shots of cake feels like it should be exactly my taste. Give me more films where it’s less about romantic relationships and more about the connection between two BFFs, but please actually commit to making that, rather than a messy melange that is never sure of what it is or what it’s about. Well-intentioned and not unpleasant, Sitting in Bars with Cake has all the ingredients of a good film, but the end result at once feels overstuffed and underbaked.