In 2013, Audrey Shulman, sick of being single, came up with a strategy: bake cakes and bring them to bars. She called it “cakebarring.” Perhaps she’d meet a man (or “boy,” as she called them) through this method. Everyone loves cake, apparently, and luring in a “boy” through his love of sugar is as acceptable as any other kind of lure. Shulman documented the experience on a blog, which got some attention. She then started writing for the Huffington Post, at one point laying out her theory about “cakebarring.” The blog then became a book, Sitting in Bars with Cake: Lessons and Recipes from One Year of Trying to Bake My Way to a Boyfriend, a mashup of anecdotes and cake recipes. Shulman wrote the screenplay for the inevitable next step in “cakebarring,” the film adaptation, “Sitting in Bars with Cake,” directed by Trish Sie.

“Sitting in Bars with Cake,” not to be confused with “Riding in Cars with Boys,” is not really about the cake part of the equation, even though it starts off there. Jane (Yara Shahidi) and Corinne (Odessa A’zion) have been friends since elementary school. They live in Los Angeles, are roommates, and also work in the same PR agency, based in the Capitol Records building. Corinne is an assistant to a swashbuckling powerhouse (Bette Midler). Jane works in the mail room. She spends her free time baking, afraid to tell her high-powered parents she doesn’t want to be a lawyer. The extroverted Corinne thinks quiet Jane needs to have more fun. The idea is born: Jane should bake cakes and bring them to bars. It would be a great way to meet “boys.” You gotta have a gimmick, right? The nightlife of Los Angeles holds no appeal for Jane, but she goes along with the plan. Corinne gives her a makeover, too.

Perhaps I don’t get the appeal of “cakebarring”. Never mind. The setup isn’t strongly established, maybe because Jane, at first, is so thinly drawn. Audrey Shulman was open about how much she hated being single. She didn’t know how to meet people. She thought this was a way. I might not understand “cakebarring” but Shulman laid out her plan with a clear goal. She was transparent about wanting a mate. Jane, though, is a passive participant. She has a work crush (Rish Shah) but is too shy to talk to him. Having a boyfriend isn’t high on her list of priorities, which of course is fine, but it brings the whole “cakebarring” project into question. The first time Jane brings a cake to a bar, a couple of men creep toward her, like tentative animals approaching Snow White in the forest. They want to see the cake. They want to taste the cake. Jane doesn’t seem all that interested in having interactions with random “boys,” and so the scene feels more awkward and maybe even weird, as opposed to the opening up of new possibilities.

Perhaps a comparison is in order. In the film “Something New,” Sanaa Lathan’s character is established with very clear lines from the first shot. She is an A-type workaholic, and yet she is so lonely she can barely stand it. She’s running out of time (she thinks) to find a mate. Everything that follows—from the man she meets to the garden she plants in her backyard—is part of her cracking open to the joys of life, and not just romantic joys (but romantic as well). She embraces spontaneity; she takes time to decompress. She lets go. Lathan is such an appealing and open presence, her sadness so apparent that you’re instantly invested in this woman finding happiness. The same doesn’t happen in “Sitting in Bars with Cake.”