Swallow (2020)

Rating: ⭐⭐½

This is a pretty strange little movie. I am not complaining because I think strange is good because that means it dares to be different from the norm. As long as it has an interesting story to tell and is well presented. Well, Swallow is certainly a fascinating watch as it addresses a rare form of mental illness - pica, an extreme and dangerous eating disorder. 

In this story, we see a young and beautiful woman, Hunter, who appears to have everything you want in life. She is shown to be married to a wealthy, successful and loving husband and as the story begins, we soon learn that she is expecting her first child as well. But we also soon see her exhibiting this horrible eating disorder as she begins to experiment in eating and swallowing all sorts of objects seemingly to help relax herself! A dark secret is revealed as a contributing factor and how she deals with this realization carries this to the film's conclusion.

Actress Haley Bennett has a natural striking beauty and presence that serves the mysterious Hunter well. I dare say the movie would have been a failure under a less capable actress. The dialogue for the most part is sparse and conservative, leaving the mood and performances the support conveying the message through. While we probably will find ourselves involved and invested in Hunter as the plot gets deeper and deeper, I can't help feeling that it all could have perhaps come across more satisfying at the end. I think the supporting characters like the husband and his parents were rather poorly conceived as one dimensional. I also felt the ending felt a bit abstract. It implied a recovery path for Hunter, but how she got from the lowest level to that reconciliatory path seem too convenient and easy. At the end of the day, while we get introduced to pica, we are nevertheless left no wiser on this peculiar form of mental illness. Perhaps too much emphasis was given here to the act itself rather than addressing the cause of such disorders.