To the Bone (2017)

Tagline:
Don’t fade away.

Wide Release Date:
July 14, 2017

Directed by:
Marti Noxon
Written by:
Marti Noxon
Produced by:
Bonnie Curtis, Karina Miller, Julie Lynn

Starring:
Lily Collins
Keanu Reeves
Carrie Preston
Lili Taylor
Alex Sharp
Liana Liberato

PREGAME THOUGHTS

I know nothing about this movie. No context, no preconceived notions, no thoughts going in. I was scanning Netflix and I jumped right in. I barely even know what it’s about. Lily Collins is cute. Let’s go.

I found your cure for anorexia! A big fucking hamburger cake.

THE 450(ish)-WORD SYNOPSIS

Ellen (Lily Collins) has anorexia. It’s affecting her health and her relationship with her terrified family. She’s a 20 year old artist who dropped out of college, and previous psychotherapy methods, inpatient programs, and attempts to force food down her gullet haven’t worked. Her stepmother Susan (Carrie Preston) doesn’t want her around the house, so she signs her up for yet another inpatient program led by Dr. Beckham (Keanu Reeves). He, as you might imagine, is VERY believable as a fucking specialty doctor.

In the program Ellen goes! She is surrounded by depressed young women and teenagers with eating disorders, plus one flamboyant dude named Luke (Alex Sharp) who exists to trick the audience into thinking he might be gay and inspired by Ellen’s art only to find out later that he’s, of course, in love with Ellen and will make a rather rude move on her later. Luke is very outgoing and appoints himself as the savior of the other program’s patients; trying to motivate and bring out the best in everyone and all that garbage.

Come on, Ellen. Eat the poop! Ellen! Eat the poop!

Ellen’s dad is not present in the movie, perhaps because he doesn’t want to be involved in his ailing daughter’s life, so there’s no surprise when he doesn’t show up to family therapy. Her mother Judy (Lili Taylor), who abandoned Ellen almost two years ago, is there with her lesbian partner. Ellen’s step-mother and younger sister is there too. The family therapy session goes extremely poorly! It is revealed later that some artwork Ellen posted online motivated a girl to commit suicide, which prrrroooobably didn’t help Ellen’s mental health.

As the movie goes on, Ellen eats less and less even though she starts bonding with the other patients and warming up to Luke. Dr. Beckham makes a point to tell Ellen that her name doesn’t suit her, which prompts her to unofficially change her name to Eli. I was going to call this reference to Elliot Page, but this predates that and I’m quite wrong. In any case, this is the only time that Ellen/Eli shows any type of gender fluidity and it isn’t expanded upon whatsoever later in the movie. It felt tacked on. Because it was.

Following the aforementioned rude move that Luke makes, Eli loses that gained trust. Then another patient named Megan has a miscarriage due to excessive purging. That’s also mentally debilitating, and Eli runs away from the home to return to her mother’s house. There’s a weird scene where her mother rocks her while feeding her from a bottle that I’d rather not remember anymore.

Yo, Ellen, that’s not your bed. You missed it by about 850 yards.

Eli takes a walk that night and passes out from malnutrition. She has dreams and visions of kissing Luke and seeing her dead, naked, emaciated body from high up in a tree. Waking up from this terrifying hallucination breathes new life into her, and she agrees to continue her treatment.

TOM’S DISCUSSION CORNER

TOPIC 1 — These Women Aren’t Skinny Enough

Oh, go fuck yourself. I’m not here to display some sort of misogynistic societal view of the unhealthy, unrealistic standard the Western world places on women’s bodies. I’m here to say these women aren’t skinny enough! See what I mean? Of course you do.

Maybe that’s unfair and short-sighted, right? Maybe a movie about anorexia shouldn’t have its actors become legitimately anorexic in order to maintain the realism. Maybe this is a bad topic and I’ll move on from it.

Sorry, Lily Collins. I didn’t mean to request that you had dropped an additional 30 pounds for the role. It won’t happen again. Say hi to Phil Collins for me.

TOPIC 2 — Fuck the Romance Plot

God, this is the literal worst. Why on Earth can’t it just be a platonic relationship? That would’ve been cute. That would’ve been nice. A young man can still care about a young woman without wanting to bone her. Bone her To the Bone! Why couldn’t it be a movie about Ellen’s physical and mental struggles and just leave it at that?

I could tell the story was leading to Luke eventually making an inappropriate move. I knew it when she first met him. I could see it in his eye twinkle and his ugly British teeth. The movie was decent enough until the cheesy Rain Room scene, which kicked off the nagging feeling that we were starting to phone it in and focus more on the needless romance subplot instead of the main eating disorder stuff. It’s almost a slap in the face to the overall message the movie was presenting: that anorexia is a serious problem with serious psychological implications to the sufferer and his/her family members. In a movie that passes the Bechdel test 80 times, why shoehorn this shit in with one out of only two male characters? Which brings me to the next topic:

TOPIC 3 — Keanu Reeves

It’s so strange to me that the people involved with writing and directing To the Bone decided that a no-nonsense male specialist with altruistic intentions, the second of the two male characters, should be the savior. In a house full of women, no one drives Ellen to reach her full potential other than Dr. Beckham and Luke. The women barely even try! Well, her mother tries by feeding her breast milk, but I don’t count that as anything worthwhile or sane.

Keanu Reeves’ character speaks entirely in hollow platitudes and trite motivational tactics. There may as well have been a scene where he sits backwards in his chair to “rap” and then tells Ellen that she needs to tell the nagging voice inside her to fuck off if it tries to tell her to keep being anorexic. Ha ha, wait, yeah, that scene basically happened anyway.

I guess it just sucks that this character couldn’t be a woman. There’s nothing really to gain in 2017 by schlepping a narrative where the older, wise man saves the troubled, young woman. I hate it. Get Kathy Bates in there telling Ellen to straighten up a fly right. Now there’s a movie!

Whoa.

IMDb TRIVIA FUNHOUSE!

Lily Collins and Marti Noxon suffered from an eating disorder in the past.
I’d suffer an eating disorder too if my dad was Phil Fucking Collins. I’d do it on purpose.

Lily Collins worked closely with a nutritionist both during filming, and for several months afterwards, to ensure her health during her weight loss and subsequent weight gain.
I wonder if Christian Bale worked closely with a nutritionist when he became a skeleton for The Machinist? It probably went a little something like this:

Nutritionist: punch

Netflix bought the film for 8 million dollars.
Yeah, and thanks for doubling my subscription cost over the last four years, you pieces of shit.

Lili Taylor and Brooke Smith were both on Six Feet Under together.
Uh huh. Looks like we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel here already. Moving on.

IS IT WORTH A WATCH?

To the Bone is rife with problems. I personally wouldn’t recommend it unless you’re really interested in a vapid love story disguised as an insightful mental illness awareness story.

Plus, that breast milk feeding scene? That was fucking weird, man.