Cake

Cake (2014) is a quiet drama you can watch online on iFILM, with Jennifer Aniston shedding every trace of her sitcom charm. She plays Claire Bennett, a woman whose body is wrecked by chronic pain and whose temper has curdled into pure acid.

Claire is brutal company. She pops painkillers, drives away anyone who cares, and gets kicked out of her support group after mocking the suicide of a fellow member named Nina. Then Nina starts appearing to her. Claire seeks out the dead woman's widower, drifts into his orbit, and slowly the source of her own grief surfaces — a wound the film withholds and reveals with real patience. Adriana Barraza plays Silvana, her housekeeper and the one person who refuses to give up on her.

Director Daniel Barnz strips the role of vanity and gloss, and Aniston runs with it: the performance landed her a Golden Globe nod and a Screen Actors Guild nomination. This is small, uncomfortable filmmaking about pain, the physical kind and the kind that sits underneath. Stream Cake (2014) online on iFILM.