Baby Cakes (film)

Baby Cakes
DVD cover
Directed by	Paul Schneider
Produced by	The Konigsberg/Sanitsky Company
Written by	Percy Adlon Joyce Eliason
Starring	Ricki Lake Craig Sheffer
Music by	Dick Rudolph
Cinematography	Tony Imi
Edited by	Ron Binkowski
Production company	The Konigsberg/Sanitsky Company
Distributed by	NBC
Release date	February 14, 1989
Running time	100 minutes
Country	USA
Language	English

Baby Cakes is a 1989 television movie starring Ricki Lake and Craig Sheffer. It was released on Valentine's Day in 1989 and is currently aired sporadically on Lifetime and Lifetime Movie Network.

Obese mortuary cosmetician Grace Hart (Ricki Lake) lives in Queens and rides the subway everyday. Her somewhat unhappy existence is noted as she shops in a department store with her best friend, Keri (Nada Despotovich) a socially awkward and mousy coworker, and is rudely asked to please look at their "Large Ladies Department". That same night she and Keri are at a local skating rink when a young, attractive, amateur ice skater, Rob (Craig Sheffer), catches Grace's eye; she claims that he is the most beautiful man she has ever laid eyes on.

The following morning, Grace is wrapping a wedding present (a painted portrait of Grace and her father) for her butcher father, Al's (John Karlen), supermarket wedding. Grace's new stepmother, a cashier at the same supermarket named Wanda (Betty Buckley), claims to care but her sweet-talking attitude somehow always ends up insulting Grace in a passive aggressive sort of way instead of helping. When Grace is caught overindulging at the wedding, Wanda and Al express their concerns with "Grace, you have such a pretty face, but, if you don't lose weight, you never will find a boyfriend". To shut Wanda up, Grace lies and states that she already has a boyfriend. A surprised Wanda stares as she claims that she and Al would love to meet him.

On her way home, Grace is riding the subway when she notices that Rob is a New York City subway conductor. After following him around town a bit, she discovers that he is in a relationship with a woman named Olivia (Cynthia Dale). Grace observes the relationship as being rocky, with Olivia behaving in a very overbearing manner toward non-confrontational Rob. She decides to win Rob over, and eventually manages a meeting with him after his girlfriend leaves town to visit her family for the Christmas holidays. This meeting blossoms into a full-fledged romance, one that is lamented by Grace's overly pessimistic best friend Keri (Nada Despotovich). After Rob leaves for a New Year's party with Grace, Olivia arrives home to an empty house. She asks around at the ice rink where Rob likes to practice skating, where Keri reveals his secret relationship, along with their location that evening. Olivia in a fit of rage, confronts Rob and Grace at the club where he is partying, and beats Grace to the ground and calls her a "fat pig".