Opening at IFC Center on March 6th is a fabulously bizarre feminist horror fable by Carlo Mirabella-Davis with a remarkable and heartbreaking performance by Haley Bennett. Haley plays Hunter, the trophy wife of successful businessman Richie (Austin Stowell). They live in a remote, pristine, modern mansion, where she spends the days cleaning, playing games on her phone and preparing dinner for her handsome husband. Her in-laws (David Rasche, and the always wonderful Elizabeth Marvel) treat her dismissively, condescendingly. She is merely a pretty ornament to further the success of their son. Hunter even becomes pregnant, but that leaves her more isolated and lonely.
She slowly is seized by the compulsion to swallow things- like marbles, push pins and batteries. But an emergency rush to the hospital unravels her secret and she is forced to undergo dubious psychological therapy and a full-time bodyguard to follow her around during the day (even frisking her before she goes to the bathroom). Not since A Doll’s House do you ache to see the heroine flee the stifling oppression of her jail-like home.
One sympathizes with Hunter’s desperate need to “eat her feelings” while she strives to make things “perfect” for her husband. As the film reveals more about Hunter’s background, her “Pica” disorder is all the more understandable and tragic. It’s difficult to visualize on film how self-harm can be so liberating for someone so desperately unhappy. With such disturbing subject matter, it’s understandable that the first half of the film is slightly cartoonish. But eventually the movie deepens into a fascinating and poignant portrait of a woman’s self-journey to some semblance of inner peace.
