To the Bone (2017)
Directed by Marti Noxon
A young woman dealing with anorexia meets an unconventional doctor who challenges her to face her condition and embrace life.
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9 films that influenced To the Bone
What critics say influenced To the Bone
That doesn’t mean that movies can’t tackle the psychology, but with only a few exceptions (e.g., the English writer-director Mike Leigh’s 1990 film Life Is Sweet , which depicts a young, working-class bulimic woman), films about eating disorders take the form of hokey, know-the-symptoms public service pamphlets aimed at teens.
When Ellen secretly investigates—perhaps expecting a stash of chocolate bars like those similarly hidden, gorged on, and purged by Jane Horrocks’s bulimic Nicola in Life Is Sweet (1990)—she recoils: it is a barf bag.
Like films as diverse as Sense and Sensibility (1995) and Archipelago (2010), To the Bone is structured by the absence of a father.
While recent years have given us Krisha, Rachel Getting Married and Flight as stories of people battling different types of addiction, you need to look as far back as the year 2000 to land on 28 Days as a major film focusing solely on addiction and disease recovery.
Like films as diverse as Sense and Sensibility (1995) and Archipelago (2010), To the Bone is structured by the absence of a father.
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Compared to the Safdie brothers’ Heaven Knows What, which similarly fictionalised writer/star Arielle Holmes’ struggles with heroin abuse, there's little sense that we're in the cauldron with these characters.
Ellen’s new treatment facility brings her under the care of the celebrated Dr. William Beckham (Keanu Reeves), threatening to take To the Bone into pat Good Will Hunting territory.
Of course, the success and believability of these sorts of movies vary wildly: for every “Half Nelson” and “Trainspotting” there’s a “Thanks For Sharing” or “Flight” (which was fuelled by a fine performance, but in the end was little more than histrionics).
Of course, the success and believability of these sorts of movies vary wildly: for every “Half Nelson” and “Trainspotting” there’s a “Thanks For Sharing” or “Flight” (which was fuelled by a fine performance, but in the end was little more than histrionics).
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The striking ideas of this movie are used for something that wants to mix the emotional immediacy of “ The Fault in Our Stars ” with a familiar type of rag-tag group crowd-pleasing.