Cake Eaters

“Mary Stuart Masterson brings the same directness and vulnerability that imbue her acting to her quietly impressive directorial debut, "Cake Eaters," transforming tyro scripter Jayce Bartok's somewhat shopworn, sentimental family drama into a vibrant, unpretentious small-town tale. Rural upstate New York settings have a homey look that adds greatly to pic's unforced authenticity, as does thesping by Aaron Stanford, Bruce Dern and Elizabeth Ashley. A dynamite perf by Kristen Stewart in a potentially hokey, girl-with-a-disease role further destroys the cliches.”