The defence The Sentimental Softie
“Sincerity is not manipulation.”
The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.
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Sitting in Bars with Cake
Romance · Comedy · Drama · 2023
Extrovert Corinne convinces Jane, a shy, talented baker, to commit to a year of bringing cakes to bars, to help her meet people and build confidence. But when Corinne receives a life-altering diagnosis, the pair faces a challenge unlike anything they've experienced before.
Movie details
Sitting in Bars with Cake
“There’s no recipe for the perfect friendship.”
2023 Romance · Comedy · Drama 1h 59m
Critical arithmetic
One number, for now.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
TMDB
7.0 / 10
Community rating
Extrovert Corinne convinces Jane, a shy, talented baker, to commit to a year of bringing cakes to bars, to help her meet people and build confidence. But when Corinne receives a life-altering diagnosis, the pair faces a challenge unlike anything they've experienced before.
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over Sitting in Bars with Cake?
For the defence
The Sentimental Softie
“You came to feel something, and you will.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Cool Ironist
“Feeling things is a little embarrassing.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
The Best You Can
Comedy · 2025
Cynthia Rand is a buttoned-up New Yorker married to a brilliant professor 25 years her senior. She begins feeling the effects of her husband’s advancing age on their relationship, just as her world is turned upside down by the arrival of sharp but chronically underachieving security guard Stan Olszewski in this smart rom-com that reunites Bacon and Sedgwick on screen for the first time in 20 years.
Ashes in the Snow
Drama · 2018
The coming-of-age tale of 16-year-old Lina Vilkas who is deported to Siberia amid Stalin's reign of terror in the Baltic region during WWII. An aspiring artist, she secretly documents her harrowing journey with her drawings.
Mumford
Comedy · 1999
When a would-be psychologist, curiously named Dr. Mumford, comes to the idyllic town of the same name and offers his talent for listening and a disarming frankness, the town's quirkiest citizens scramble for a seat on his couch. As he lightens hearts darkened by old secrets no one realizes he's hiding a whopper of his own, or that he's fallen head over heels for one of his patients!
Dinner in America
Romance · 2020
An on-the-lam punk rocker and a young woman obsessed with a local band go on an unexpected and epic journey together through the decaying suburbs of the American Midwest.
Blind
Drama · 2017
A novelist is blinded in a car crash that killed his wife and several years later rediscovers his passion for life and writing when he embarks on an affair with the neglected wife of an indicted businessman.
ATL
Drama · 2006
As four friends prepare for life after high school, different challenges bring about turning points in each of their lives. The dramas unfold and resolve at their local rollerskating rink, Cascade.
Delirious
Comedy · 2007
Les, a small-time celebrity photographer desperate to make it big, befriends Toby, a homeless young man with no direction except a vague desire to become an actor. When by chance, Toby becomes romantically involved with K'Harma Leeds, the hottest pop star of the moment, Les grows jealous and plots revenge.
How to Please a Woman
Romance · 2022
When her all-male house-cleaning business gets out of control, a mature woman must embrace her own sexuality, if she is to make a new life for herself.
Night Owls
Drama · 2015
After workaholic Kevin has a drunken one night stand with the beautiful train-wreck Madeline, he's horrified to discover that she's actually his boss' jilted ex-mistress. When she takes a bottle of sleeping pills, Kevin is forced to keep her awake... and over the course of the night the two begin to fall for each other.
The Good House
Romance · 2021
When wry New England realtor Hildy Good rekindles a romance with her old high-school flame, Frank Getchell, it ignites long-buried emotions and family secrets that propel Hildy toward a reckoning with the one person she's been avoiding for decades: herself. Based on the best-selling novel by Ann Leary.
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Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Trish Sie
Written by
Audrey Shulman
Yara Shahidi
Jane
Odessa A'zion
Corinne
Bette Midler
Benita
Ron Livingston
Fred
Maia Mitchell
Liz
Aaron Dominguez
Dave
Rish Shah
Owen
Court is in session
Put Sitting in Bars with Cake on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Cool Ironist
“The strings are showing.”
Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.