CAKE DAY
One Day at a Time
“Cake Day” is an award-winning film about addiction. It is a Canadian short directed by Phillip Thomas and stars Cameron Crosby. It won Best BC Short Film at Vancouver International Film Festival and was an Official Selection for LA Shorts and the Rhode Island International Film Festival. The “Cake Day” message resonates with the dark theme of addiction and empathy’s redemptive emotion. Motion pictures like Beautiful Boy and the classic Requiem for a Dream show the complicated world of drugs as totally painful and without hope. The protagonist of “Cake Day” is an artist with a drug-abusing past, sobriety, and one significant setback. “Cake Day” champions his path to abstinence.
The film’s electric score, composed by Jeremy Wallace Maclean, depicts Cameron’s tension during his relapse. His mom brings him to an AA facility to celebrate five years of sobriety. Still, the milestone is in question. There is a scene where Cameron goes to the bathroom to catch his breath and his sponsor, Bill, gives him a pep-talk that saves him from psychological collapse. The score is frantic and suspenseful, carrying us from the solemn AA hall aesthetic to the dimly-lit bathroom. The sponsor later references this time when he reads an introduction about Cameron’s five-year struggle.
At the end of the film, the score returns to welcome us into the last part of Cameron’s journey, as he stands in front of the AA circle and speaks about making it to his five-year cake day. This poignant journey shows us the chaos of Cameron’s daily challenges. He references his experience as “a spiral where [he feels like] he burned it all down.” Cameron also comments, “I’m here, and that’s something,” as the film closes.
