Netflix Film Gets Down "To The Bone" of Eating Disorders

​Ellen (Lily Collins, right) and her step-sister Kelly (Liana Liberato, left) talk after an unsuccessful family therapy session (To the Bone, Noxon, 2017).

by Megan Hess

​Although eating disorders affect millions of people’s lives every year, it is not an experience that is well-represented in film – both in that said films often have inaccuracies or oversimplified portrayals of a complex problem, or just that not very many popular ones exist. In all fairness, making a film about a protagonist with an eating disorder is tricky business. While many people first think of the external, physical component of eating disorders first, they are also largely mental and internal. The warped sense of reality, constant loop of negative self-talk and other thought\behavior patterns characteristic of eating disorders can be more challenging to present on screen in a fresh and authentic way. Another challenge – for films about anorexia more than any other - is the need to balance realism and the actor’s health. Eating disorder films often do the opposite of what they intend by creating “thinspiration” images sufferers use as weight-loss goals. For example, in Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia, Mayra Hornbacher talks about how the TV movie version of Steven Levenkron’s The Best Little Girl in the World “is often shown on eating-disorder units and never fails to bring a great many patients into a tizzy over how skinny the actress (who starved herself to play the part) is and how they need to be as thin as her” (Hornbacher 43). 

Jennifer Jason Leigh in The Best Little Girl in the World (O'Steen, 1981)

​Although I have enjoyed reading both real and fictionalized accounts of eating disorders for many years, To the Bone (Noxon, 2017) was the first eating disorder movie I have ever watched. Like any other form of movie, when done well, they can be powerful. To the Bone follows Ellen (Lily Collins), a 20-year-old with anorexia who goes on a transformative journey by way of a group home with “unconventional” methods. Lily Collins has a sad Basset hound face that goes well with her character’s sense of guilt for her indirect role in a haunting tragedy, which drives her self-hatred. The movie provides broad sweeps of backstory that can be pieced together as factors for her disease, but does not go into her past – or any of the other characters’ - very much. Possibly, that strategy was the creators’ way to avoid creating a “cause-and-effect” narrative – one of the ways To the Bone shows the complexity of the eating disordered experience. Instead of just a house full of young white women – aka, what many people picture when they think of people with eating disorders – the fictional group home in To The Bone has a pregnant bulimic, a black lesbian binge eater, and a male anorexic among the residents. 

Luke (Alex Sharp) and Ellen (Lily Collins) chat (To the Bone, Noxon, 2017)

I thought Luke, the male anorexic character, was an important inclusion, since men now make up 25% of the eating disordered population, according to the National Eating Disorders Association. However, To the Bone made him too much of a focus when they could have been investing screen time into building the relationships between the women in the house. Furthermore, while Alex Sharp - a rising-star Brit known for being the youngest person ever to win the Tony Award for Best Actor in A Play – does an excellent job with his role (I consider his rain dance one of the highlights of To the Bone), the movie smothers the viewer with his character, and there’s an unforgivable twist with his and Ellen’s character arcs. In all, it could use less of Luke and more of Dr. Beckham (Keanu Reeves, who outperforms everyone else in the film). The ending does not provide much closure, but does offer a lot of hope. While I would not recommend it as a first resource to people without much prior knowledge of eating disorders, To the Bone is still an interesting film with strong moments and characters, for all its flaws.
Works Cited
Hornbacher, Marya. Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia. New York: HarperCollins, 1998. Print.