Director Asim Abbasi’s Cake begins with a concept any South Asian man or woman immediately recognises: one’s parents’ insistence to be with their children at the last stages of their life. It’s a simple enough request (or demand) that, more often than not, has overwhelming, if not disastrous, consequences on their offspring’s lives — more so, if the children are settled abroad.

In such circumstances, the pressure is on someone like Zareen (Aamina Sheikh), self-sacrificing, grousing, unmarried middle child who has been taking care of their ailing father (Mohammed Ahmed) and nagging mother (Beo Rana Zafar) after her brother Zain (Faris Khalid), and younger sister Zara (Sanam Saeed) moved to the UK and America — the two popular get-away-from-family destinations for the affluent.

Like most good daughters, when Zara gets the news that her father is in hospital, she boards the next flight to Karachi. Zain is a little slow, making sure his pudgy son gets a break from school. The sisters reunite at the hospital. Both tired, each offers the other a break to get some rest. No one wins this particular argument, and one of them ends up dozing off at the other’s shoulder. It’s a small enough physical gesture that sets the tone of the narrative and performances.

Cake is a rare mix of entangled emotions with its debutant director Asim Abbasi showing an exceptional grasp of story, pace and tone

Abbasi’s film, as if you hadn’t guessed by now, is a family drama of love, anger and reconciliation. It is not a sappy melodrama, mind you. The screenplay (also by Abbasi) takes deliberate care to maintain a sense of everyday normalcy, even when things are about to boil over. For instance, when their father returns home with a caretaker called Romeo (Adnan Malik), Zareen suddenly sees red. Fuming with anger, she aggressively walks up to her wheelchair-bound father, kissing him on the forehead, snatching off his hearing aid so that he can’t hear, and then storming into the kitchen to have “a word” with her mother and sister. Her argument insinuates a romantic connection with Romeo, and although the bond and its tension are omnipresent, that story arc is intentionally left on the backburner.

Not everything can be stuffed into a two-hour long film, and for once we have a filmmaker perceptive enough to know what should and shouldn’t be forced on to the audience. When obligatory scenes of conflict and resolve are necessary, Abbasi tries to mask them with cinematographic or editorial shrewdness. A coffee shop conversation between Zara and her ex (Mikaal Zulfiqar), which introduces a conflict for the latter half, is sharply cut by editor Aarti Bajaj (her Bollywood credits include: Raman Raghav 2.0, Tamasha and Highway). Bajaj’s gift of holding a shot is precise to the exact number of frames and minuteness of the actor’s expressions.

Mo Azmi’s cinematography compliments Bajaj’s skill-set. Rather than repeating angles in that same scene, Azmi shifts lenses and shot sizes and, when up close, whip pans from one character’s side profile to the other. These kinetic tendencies come into play only when required.

A protracted, terse, revealing argument between the sisters starts with one of the lengthiest uncut take in Pakistani cinema, with the characters moving from corridor to room and back again. Azmi, an experienced cinematographer (he lensed O21 and Jalaibee) uses every opportunity to exploit his craftsmanship. An extension of this scene is lit entirely by candles — a visual nod to Stanley Kubrick’s pioneering experiment in Barry Lyndon.

The editor, cinematographer and production designer (Zain Khan) are distinct in their individuality, yet their creative pool is strictly in place to serve Abbasi’s storytelling. Sets are littered with telling details of an old couple’s house: stored away boxes with Betty and Veronica digests, balding Barbie dolls, a pile of VHS cassettes supporting a wig stand right next to an old 26-inch television.

Casual viewers may subconsciously notice these cinematic novelties; however, their attention wouldn’t be taken away from the characters and their delicate dilemmas. Aamina Sheikh and Sanam Saeed are exceptional, natural performers whose characters squirm between sibling love, stinging heartache, forsaken ambitions and dividing the weight of obligations. Mohammed Ahmed (in his best screen performance till date) and Beo Rana Zafar are perfect embodiments of well-read, well-off, old people. The absoluteness of their romance manifest in blunt, glib teasing and Bollywood songs from the ’70s (a song or two from Pakistan would’ve been nice; it’s not as if we didn’t have foot-tapping music then).

Cake, then, is a rare mix of entangled emotions with Abbasi showing an exceptional grasp of story, pace and tone. This blend may not be up everyone’s alley, and may inappropriately be labelled ‘arthouse cinema’. But Cake is a feature film in the same genre as Nikkah or Dobara Phir Se. People looking for dance numbers, double-meaning humour or badly choreographed action set-pieces, should also buy a ticket. They may develop a taste for the understated, and some of it may ring a bell.

Published in Dawn, ICON, April 8th, 2018