Bone-chilling exploration
Netflix drama walks fine line in effort to depict real trauma of eating disorders
To the Bone Now streaming, Netflix
Writer and director Marti Noxon struggled with anorexia and bulimia for 10 years. It’s her story, albeit a fictionalized version, she tells in To the Bone, a feature film on Netflix about a 20-year-old artist whose eating disorder has reached a dire point. Lily Collins, who herself has a history with eating disorders, plays the main character, Ellen.
“I didn’t remember seeing a feature film that dealt with this,” Noxon said recently in a joint interview with Collins. “I felt like it was high time there was a more authentic look at it, something that felt more genuine. There’s still a lot of misunderstanding of it. People make the mistake of thinking it’s all about vanity run amok.”
The depiction of eating disorders, and specifically anorexia, in film and on television has a troubled history. In feature films, we’ve seen it fetishized as Natalie Portman’s perfectionist ballerina coos over half of a grapefruit in Black Swan, exploited as an emaciated patient wails that “74 pounds is the perfect weight” in Girl, Interrupted, satirized with Barbie dolls in Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story and played for comedic effect in the black comedy Drop Dead Gorgeous when a skeletal beauty pageant contestant in a wheelchair rolls out on stage to lip-synch Don’t Cry Out Loud.
On television, interpretations are usually maudlin and melodramatic — Lifetime films about broken homes and obsessive teenage girls, tears and death.
And most of the time, it’s about a young, white, underweight female.
For these reasons and the sensitivities of those who have or are suffering from eating disorders, To the Bone has already provoked passionate responses. Critics latched on to a trailer and picked it apart for its potential to trigger and a worry that it could glamorize eating disorders or be used as “thinspiration.” It was also lampooned for focusing on “another middle-class white woman.”
It has put Collins and Noxon in the position of having to be defensive before the film is even out. Both say they hope audiences respond to its more nuanced and complex portrait of the illness and the various ways in which it can manifest. For instance, there’s a woman of colour in the treatment centre, as well as a man. As fellow survivors, Collins and Noxon were extremely careful in just how they wanted to bring the story to life.
Noxon consulted specialists who treat eating disorders during the script phase and, as a result, never includes mention of Ellen’s weight or goal weight — numbers aren’t discussed — and only once shows the character’s full body. Numbers, she said, can stick in people’s heads and become aspirational.
“We didn’t want it to be gratuitous in any way,” Collins said. “Neither Marti nor I, having experienced this, would ever set out to make a movie that fetishized, encouraged or glamorized this disorder.”
Ellen, who is witty, vibrant and darkly funny, is also not the kind of tragic heroine you might recognize from other depictions.
While millions struggle with eating disorders at some point in their lives, it remains an illness widely misunderstood.
“For us as an organization, we’re very interested in raising the profile of eating disorders as a serious public health issue,” said National Eating Disorder Association CEO Claire Mysko. “Having eating disorders discussed on a national platform like this is really important.”
NEDA participated in a public service announcement with the cast, but had no involvement in the actual film. Representatives have encouraged Netflix to include resources for help in its rollout.
Noxon and Collins aren’t shying away from the debate and discussions either and both urge those who feel like they might not be in a good place to watch the film to simply skip it. They also stress that it’s a story of hope and recovery.
“What’s important to take away from the movie is that seeking help is never a weakness, it’s a strength,” Collins said. “It’s meant to start a conversation.”