To the Bone - REVIEW

Ellen is edgy. Ellen uses Tumblr. Ellen likes art – Ellen suffers from anorexia.

To the Bone is a story that follows Ellen (played by Lily Collins), an anorexic, and sometimes annoyingly pessimistic, twenty-year old whose stepmother has tried everything to get her to stop her dangerous habits. In this journey of seeking help, they arrive at Dr. Beckham’s, a doctor with nontraditional methods of treating his patients, who agrees to take Ellen in at Threshold, a house filled with other in-patients, all with their own varying eating disorders. The movie follows her stay there, and gives us a, sometimes graphic, insight into what people with anorexia go through – or rather, what Ellen goes through. Because, as the movie highlighted, everyone struggling with an eating disorder has a different story, a different look, a different way to inflict the damage and their own barriers to overcome. I’ll admit, and I’m not sure for anyone else, but I had brushed off an eating disorder as just starving yourself because of the pressures of society to look model-like and becoming bone-thin (before covering the topic in school at least). And the creator of this film, Marti Noxon, who has had their own battles with an eating disorder, has at least helped bring awareness to the fact that there is so much more to it, and showed us what I can only assume is the reality of eating disorders (seeing as I have no personal experience with it.) But that might have been a problem.

Many have found the movie in its pursuit of truth, to be triggering. I don’t get squeamish easily – the throwing up, nor the gaunt figures of the actors affected me – the thing that did get me however was my thought that, as terrible as it sounds, even in this almost-dead state, I found Lily Collins to be beautiful. And if it made me think that, I can only imagine others did too, and the effect it had on those with/recovering from EDs.

This reminded me of the other popular Netflix production “13 Reasons Why,” another show which I felt didn’t hit the right mark for me. I get that it was bringing awareness to such a taboo topic as suicide, but the style of Hannah’s suicide just seemed “artsy” and it most likely appealed to suicidal viewers. The other reason To the Bone missed the mark was for me is because we never actually find out what it is that makes Ellen develop her ED, leaving us aware of different EDs and signs of how to spot them, but never any insight on why they happen. Because of my inexperience with them, I felt a lot like Ellen’s sister with her comment about “just fucking eat,” and it leaves me with the feeling that the movie was not an insightful take on how to prevent the disorders, but rather was just an inside-joke for anyone with an ED (see above as to why I find this problematic).

That being said, the main difference between To the Bone and 13 Reasons was that I actually found To the Bone and enjoyable, and downright funny at times with its light tone and insider lingo, and once you’re aware of these problematic details and feel OK about it, I suggest you give it a watch. Now for the unproblematic things I didn’t care for, and the stuff I really liked:

I wished there hadn’t been a romantic sub-plot with Luke. It felt weird. I liked Luke a whole lot, at least in the earlier part of the film. The “using Eli as a coping plan” didn’t sit well with me, and basically was only there (I assume) to further their relationship. This made it futile though, because he wasn’t even her reason to deciding to get better (or was he? – maybe it flew over my head but I had no idea what exactly in her Tree-Dream made her want to live).

I did enjoy the restaurant scene, it had me laughing out loud. I also liked how the movie brought awareness to STOP ROMANTICISING DANGEROUS HABITS AND ADDICTIONS, seen when we learn how Ellen’s beautiful artwork of something so vile lead a girl to kill herself. And, as much as I hate to admit, I for the most part was amused by the banter between the characters, despite how cliché it may have seemed at times.

All in all, I have no idea what to rate this movie when it comes to a percentage, all I can say is, if you’re looking for something to watch, I’d recommend it, and also that the acting in the film was quite good. Wish we got to see what happened after her reinstatement at Threshold, though.

~Bxlla