I said I was going to watch these oscar-look-out movies and write again. I watched two. I did not write.
It’s interesting, noting when I am moved to write. After Dad died, I needed to write. It’s as if I could not state what I wanted about life, so I had to write about other things. After Mom died, I almost felt like I couldn’t write. Then I found the need or the want to write again. Then I lost it.
The truth is: I don’t know where it all sits with me right now.
That said, I’m feeling the reflections flowing now, so keys are on the keyboard.
So — Swallow. What an interesting film. I was already familiar with pica behavior (eating non-food items) from my work in mental health. I had a few clients who displayed pica behavior. But worry not: you don’t need that background to relate to and follow what’s going on in Swallow.
So yes, Swallow has as a central character this eating disorder called pica. What I especially liked about the film is that it does not hit you over the head with the technical or medical or psychological aspect of pica behavior. Instead, you just follow along in Hunter’s life as her life spirals, outwardly shown by her developing pica behavior and its inevitable consequences. It’s the sort of spiral you cannot look away from.
Haley Bennett, who plays Hunter, delivers a superb performance, delivering this calm demeanor of a woman controlled yet learning how to control what she can (those items she swallows). The curiosity in her eyes; the realization of how she might be caught; the determination not to stay in her situation —— Bennett deftly shows all of these things seamlessly.
I’ve not read much about this film, but I’ve seen it called “horror.” Don’t let that turn you off is such is not your genre. This isn’t a movie with “gotcha” things that jump out or happen. This isn’t about creepy clowns or a killer wielding a knife. But it does hold psychological suspense.
I don’t know: maybe horror is an okay description. Maybe the “horror” is not my traditional notion of horror in film-speak but instead in the horror of feeling controlled so much that one must go to such extremes to find control. But then again, that’s not really horror; that’s genuine behavior displayed by many people. Depending on the level, that’s reaction; that’s mental illness; that’s psychosis. And that’s surely the root of some pica behavior, right?
If anything, I learned from this film the relation between pica behavior and pregnancy. And I get it: if pica is some need to demonstrate a control over something, then why wouldn’t it manifest when a woman’s body is suddenly so different — out of her control? Or maybe that’s the key here: Hunter is not just any pregnant woman. And true, the movie slips in a side plot to try to explain why, just maybe, Hunter was susceptible to developing pica behavior (but that, really, was unnecessary).
Whatever the reason for calling the movie one of the horror genre, I will say that it’s suspenseful, even if in a slowly-unfolding manner. And how the movie tells her story of the consequences of her feeling controlled, maybe it’s extreme. Maybe too, though, it’s a way to show how important it is to be able to have autonomy over our own bodies – – – and the, albeit rare, possible consequences when that autonomy is taken away. The more I reflect on the film, the more I feel this connection to Hunter’s need for autonomy. And the more the side-plot point makes more and more sense.
At the end of it all, the movie entertained, but I cannot imagine it’s up there for a best picture this year. (Ha. This is me assuming what might be out there for the rest of the year in this oh-so-unpredictable year.) But Bennett — if she doens’t get award accolades this year, she certainly set herself up here for more parts for which she might. She’s good here. And whether for Bennett or for an interesting story about control and autonomy, Swallow is a good film to spend an evening with.