Marti Noxon's Phenomenon: Film Review

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Marti Noxon’s 2017 drama was released directly to the streaming platform Netflix. It was given high ratings across the board by websites like IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes. Despite consistently positive reviews, this film does not truly show the ugly side of the disease. Instead it sacrifices an honest depiction of the illness in order to achieve a semi-happy ending sprinkled with cute, quirky moments. This movie is about a twenty-year-old woman named Ellen (Lily Collins) who suffers from anorexia. As a last ditch effort she is taken to an unconventional specialist and is entered into a group home. After a fellow inpatient miscarries and an unsatisfactory meeting with her therapist she decides to leave. Soon after, she loses consciousness and has …show more content…

She was kicked out of four treatment facilities for being a bad influence on the other patients. She meets all the diagnostic criteria for the restricting subtype of anorexia. She refuses to eat food at all and if she does she spits it out, causing her to become critically underweight. She also exhibits persistent behavior that interferes with weight gain while she is critically underweight. She does excessive amounts of pushups to the point that she has developed bruises on her spine. She also uses laxatives and smokes to reduce appetite. Additionally, she displays both disturbance of body image and lack of knowledge of the seriousness of her low body weight. She measures her upper arms to make sure that they do not get too big. She frequently jokes about how she is a cheap date and makes a game out of guessing calorie amounts. She says that she does not feel sick and denies having a …show more content…

In order to gain admittance to the new program she was trying she had to prove to Dr. William Beckham (Keanu Reeves) that she wanted to get better; he told her that he would not treat patients who were not interested in living. Part of the program is staying in a group home. In the home, they are prohibited to have phones or any other electronic devices or sharp objects. None of the rooms have doors so that they cannot secretly exercise or purge. They also use a token economy; if they do chores or approach their weight goal then they get points and eventually extra privileges. In the mornings there is facilitated group therapy and at night there is an end of day check in. This is used as a way for the patients to discuss their goals and what they are struggling with. At dinner, they are allowed to eat whatever they want but they are not allowed to leave the table during dinner and the bathrooms are locked for thirty minutes after to discourage purging. Dr. Beckham attempts to use family therapy with Ellen, but discontinued it after a single session. During one of their later sessions Dr. Beckham says that Ellen’s idea of safety is stupid and childish and that she needs to “stop waiting for things to be easy. Stop hoping for someone to save…” her. She leaves treatment and he lets her go without informing her family because “hitting rock bottom is essential” for

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