Five minutes into CAKE, I asked my husband, who was watching along with me, if watching it was going to give him nightmares. Jim chuckled and said, "I was wondering the same thing." 

We had the exchange not because CAKE is a scary movie and my husband is a chicken, but because CAKE is about chronic pain and my husband has suffered from such for more than a decade. He managed to watch it all the way through, though, with nary a nightmare that night.

CAKE, starring Jennifer Aniston in a dark, powerful role, is about...