Sitting in Bars with Cake is a comedy-drama film based on a true story that follows two best friends who come up with an unconventional plan to socialise. It is now streaming on Prime Video.
Plot summary
Jane struggles to socialise with strangers at parties. Her job is delivering mail at an office but she has a penchant for baking.
One day, she manages to strike up conversations with men at a bar who ask her about her cake. This gives her extroverted best friend, Corinne, an idea.
She asks Jane to take cakes every week to bars for one year to meet new men and potentially find a boyfriend.
The plan actually starts to pay off as the two start tracking the ‘results’ of each outing. While Jane loves baking, her parents are convinced that she will become a lawyer.
After getting a promotion, Corinne suddenly suffers a seizure. When the doctors perform a scan, she is revealed to have brain cancer.
Her parents want to take her away from the city but Corinne doesn’t want to leave her life. She and Jane convince her parents that she can take care of her.
Her parents agree on the condition that they’ll stay with them for a while. Eventually, they leave. The ‘cakebarring’ continues to prove effective.
Jane eventually hits it off with her office colleague, Owen. Corinne tries to advise Jane on getting underwear but this results in an argument.
Jane isn’t happy that Corinne did not tell her about her frequent dizziness, and she responds that she wants to only talk about what makes her happy.
Jane and Corinne have a heartfelt talk where they confess that both have wished they could have traded lives with each other.
After Corinne loses her hair due to the chemotherapy, she starts wearing a pink wig. Corinne tries to tell Jane’s parents that she does not want to pursue law, but Jane tells her she is not ready for this conversation yet.
Corinne’s situation begins to worsen and she struggles to even remember basic details like the month and the day.
The doctor tells Jane, Corinne and her parents that another tumour has appeared in her brain. There is currently no treatment for it and her only real option is to take part in clinical trials.
Sitting in Bars with Cake ending explained in detail:
Does Corinne enter a clinical trial?
Jane apologises to Corinne’s father as she feels she could have done more, but he replies that it’s nobody’s fault.
She tries to distract herself by seeing Owen. Eventually, Corinne’s mother tells Jane that they couldn’t find any clinical trial.
Corinne was either unsuitable for the trial or they were too late to enrol. Any potential options were also not viable due to the late stage of the cancer.
This basically meant that there was no chance for Corinne to survive now. Jane and her family begin to come to terms with this.
Do Jane and Owen end up together?
Jane starts baking again and decides to complete the original plan of taking 50 cakes to bars. She also tells her parents that she does not want to study law and that baking is her real passion.
When Corinne asks Jane what’s going on between her and Owen, she says that though she likes him, it was important that Owen liked her due to her low self-confidence.
When Jane tells Owen about the cakebarring, he makes fun of it. Later, Jane tells him that she doesn’t want to date right now. He apologises for the comments on the cake and calls her an outgoing person, much to her happiness.
Does Jane finish the Cakebarring?
As Corinne’s situation worsens, Jane promises to always love her no matter where she is in the universe. She then asks her to rest.
In the morning, Corinne passes away. She left a note pleading Jane to take all her underwear. She finally completes the task of 50 cakes and talks to Corinne’s grave.
One year later, Jane distributes cakes instead of mail in the same office. It is revealed that she has launched her own bakery called ‘Cake Bar’, inspired by her cakebarring adventures with Corinne.
During the credits, it is revealed that screenwriter Audrey Shulman was the woman who took cakes to bars. Her best friend, Chrissy, was diagnosed with cancer but encouraged her to stop. The film is dedicated to her.
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