Sitting in Bars with Cake

On February 9, 2022, in was reported that Yara Shahidi will star and exec produce the Amazon Studios romantic comedy-drama Sitting in Bars with Cake based on the blog and book of the same name by Audrey Shulman. Trish Sie joined the film as director while Shulman adapted the script.[3] On September 22, 2022, Bette Midler, Ron Livingston, Maia Mitchell, Aaron Dominguez, Rish Shah, Odessa A’zion, Martha Kelly, Adina Porter, Navid Negahban, Simone Recasner, Will Ropp and Charlie Patton have joined the cast.[4] Principal photography took place in Los Angeles in October 2022.[4] It is the first film to be distributed through Amazon MGM Studios Distribution, a new film and television distribution unit for Amazon and MGM projects, with this film being released through the MGM banner.[5]

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 80% of 40 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.7/10. The website's consensus reads: "A well-acted if slightly formulaic story of friendship, Sitting in Bars with Cake moves between laughter and tears without succumbing to melodrama."[6] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 65 out of 100, based on 9 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[7]

Film critic Natasha Alvar from Cultured Vultures compared Sitting in Bars with Cake with 1980s comedy-dramas like Beaches and Steel Magnolias.[8] Adrian Horton from The Guardian wrote in her review: "Shahidi is capable if a tad recessive as the film’s emotional center, one whose can-do attitude is both grating and absolutely necessary. But it’s A’Zion’s performance that sparkles; her Corinne – vivacious and deadpan, her rapid-fire wit papering over a visceral denial – adds some much needed tartness to a recipe that could easily become too maudlin. “Most of the time, I don’t feel like a sick person,” she bitterly admits after a workplace-sponsored fundraiser for her illness, and it's true; even as Corinne's condition deteriorates, A’Zion's performance maintains a distinct, bristly vitality."[9] Sheila O'Malley from RogerEbert.com also give the film positive review and praised A'zion' performance: "Because Corinne's diagnosis is so central, the film thankfully avoids the trap of "illness as plot point", and A'zion's performance is so strong it's impossible not to feel Corinne's sense of loss, her sense of how unfair it all is, even when (or especially when) she tries to cover it up with cracking a joke."[10] Meanwhile, Amy Nicholson from Variety give it negative review for too melodramatic tone.[11]

• Beaches (1988) another comedy-drama film starring Bette Midler with similar premise.

• Sitting in Bars with Cake at IMDb