'The Cake Eaters' review

Aaron Stanford and Kristen Stewart (Credit: 57th and Irving/7th Floor)

The quiet lives of aging shopkeeper Easy (Bruce Dern) and his shy son Beagle (Aaron Stanford) are disrupted ever so slightly when prodigal son Guy (Jayce Bartok, who also wrote the script) returns home and forces the family to confront a recent tragedy. Easy finds comfort with his girlfriend Marg (Elizabeth Ashley), while her terminally ill granddaughter Georgia (scene stealing Kristen Stewart) develops a special interest in Beagle.

The buzz: Filmed all the way back in 2006, the directorial debut of “Fried Green Tomatoes” and “Some Kind of Wonderful” actress Mary Stuart Masterson has been kicking around film festivals for a couple years and is scheduled to hit DVD on March 24. Recent Oscar nominee Melissa Leo has a dialogue-free two-scene cameo as Easy’s late wife, but credit for the movie’s token theatrical exposure probably goes to Stewart’s increased awareness post-“Twilight.”

The verdict: A small movie in every way, but solidly crafted and respectably acted. The filmmakers touch on straightforward themes of love and loss, without wallowing in excessive sentimentality or stooping to tear-jerking plot twists. The well-played twin romances between Easy and Marg/Beagle and Georgia make the film something of an emotionally restrained variation on “The Notebook”—potentially perfect for Stewart’s new romance-inclined fanbase. It’s pleasant but forgettable, with only one lingering question: whether modesty or self-indulgence was to blame for screenwriter Bartok slowing things down as the film’s least interesting main character.

Did you know? The shoot was a family affair for Masterson. Her brother, Peter C.B. Masterson was the director of photography.

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