User Reviews

Like another reviewer I imagined this was going to be about Pill addiction - a glimpse at the poster, the only thing I allowed myself or rather couldn't avoid seeing - other than that I did not read anything about the movie. So that looked like a pill thing ... and it turned out this is a different beast.

Now I imagine that most people who want to watch it (and of course those who already have) read up on the plot and are not like me avoiding any information at all costs. So you don't need me to tell you anything about that. What I will tell you, is that the movie is quite the tough and harrowing watch. And all the focus lies on the main female character. Everyone else is quite flat from a character standpoint. A bodyguard sort of type may have the most personality of them all.

But that did not make the movie any less intriguing. And while it seems impossible to have any sort of final resolution here ... you may agree with how the movie decides to end ... even if most likely you may not be able to really get a grip on everything she goes through, we do feel for her ...

A disturbing & distressing story of loneliness, trauma, compulsion & isolation that's driven by an exquisitely layered performance from its leading lady, Swallow follows a pregnant housewife living a seemingly idyllic but emotionally stifling domestic life until she develops an obsession that allows her to break free from her controlled & submissive environment.

Written & directed by Carlo Mirabella-Davis in his feature directorial debut, the story utilises a compulsive eating disorder as its narrative tool to cover a woman's journey from a subdued & compliant wife to regaining control over her body & life. The silent camerawork & gradual pace fit the premise, while the neat yet suffocating ambience aptly reflect her own domiciliary existence.

While it is unnerving & uncomfortable to watch her new obsession take over her life, even more unsettling is the lack of empathy from her husband & his parents as they tighten their grip over her life after learning about her psychological disorder. This is one story that never would've made it to the finish line without a strong performance to steer it through, and Haley Bennett more than delivers in that role.

Overall, Swallow is far from an easy sit and is also uneven at times but it manages to create intrigue & interest with its offbeat approach & eccentric story, and exhibits sophistication in several aspects. Bennet's fab performance is the glue that holds it together but if you went in expecting a psychological horror with good dose of thrills, then this indie is bound to leave behind a slightly underwhelming aftertaste. Still not for the squeamish.

Originality within the bounds of reality is a rare achievement in film or cinema these days. Haley Bennett leaves us under no illusion of the psychological strain her past and present circumstances have had and are having on her. Tormented in so many ways as so many people are in these confusing, evolving and ever changing times - our hunter gatherer minds can find all that's thrown their way a little tricky to wash down, but there are ways to compensate.

An extremely self-aware A-to-Z psychological thriller about taking back your life through rituals of control, complete with patriarchal caricatures and metaphors of intrusion left and right (think Aronofsky's "mother!"--but a dark comedy).

Approaches the level of Snakes on a Plane or Teeth on self-aware high-concept absurdity, yet manages to be taken seriously thanks to a great performance by lead actress Haley Bennett, lush cinematography, and a constant stream of creative ways to push the autonomy message over the top (the first frames of the film are close-ups of farm-to-plate preparation of lamb meat).

Swallow is destined to be a cult-classic. It's the quintessentially bold, fun, and unique indie film festival offering (Anna and the Apocalypse was that film for me last year).

Highly recommended, but not for the squeamish.

The acting and visuals are great. the story line lacked that punch that could have made this a 7 or 8.

the story is sad but just didn't connect with me and i was dissapointed with the end

6.1

Haley Bennett's soft- spoken character was refreshing and I empathized with her dilemma.

I was weirdly taken with this movie. Reading the description, I was pretty hesitant about actually watching it but I'm so glad I did.

Swallow is a slow, ponderous, captivating and cringe-inducing story of a woman who's life is slowly unraveling when she finds that lap of luxury she's lovingly married into turns out to actually be a stifling gilded cage.

The psychological turmoil that Bennett portrays was really subtle and moving. We don't get a string of explanatory diatribes, we get her performance and it absolutely works.

This is hard to watch at times though. Our lead character does love up to the title. She swallows things. Things that shouldn't be swallowed and it's hard to watch but I found it incredibly effective.

Swallow is wonderful example of slowly building psychological distress and simultaneously a display of Bennett's skill. This is going to be a really unpleasant experience for a lot of people but if you can appreciate the exploration of the psyche then you may just enjoy the journey this takes you on.

The housewife Hunter Conrad (Haley Bennett) is happily married with the young CEO husband Richie Conrad (Austin Stowell). However her life is totally controlled by her husband and his family. When she is pregnant, she is stressed and eats the weirdest objects. Soon Richie's family hires a male nurse and a psychologist to take care of Hunter. When they decide to send her to a psychiatric hospital, Hunter learns that she needs to control of her life.

"Swallow" is an interesting film about a pregnant wife with Pica disorder. The gorgeous Haley Bennett has excellent performance and the conclusion is magnificent. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Swallow"

As the title and cover image suggest, this film is about a young woman with the unusual psychological condition of pica, which compels her to swallow non-food items, including some pretty dangerous stuff. That makes the movie immediately interesting, but unfortunately, the pica feels more like a hook to make us watch a more conventional movie about a "young housewife" whose domestic situation is dreadful and how she reacts to it.

Hunter (played very well by Hayley Atwell...best thing about the film) is recently married and lives in a BEAUTIFUL house along the Hudson River. Her handsome husband works in the city, and it busy and successful and only pays sporadic attention to her. He's affectionate at times, distant at others times and in yet other times, he is alarmingly nasty to his bride. (I have no idea how these two could ever have met. I can't envision what circles she moved in that overlapped with his...unless he specifically went looking for a "nice, slightly dim girl" to take care of his house and give him children without complaint.) And to make her even more miserable, she has very condescending, opinionated in-laws. (And her own family may not have been great either.) All-in-all, her existence is unhappy.

So she copes by giving in to her compulsion. So it's a domestic drama colliding with a movie about pica. And it doesn't really work. If it's a domestic drama, the characters in her circle are too one-dimensional and unlikeable to really be believable. Hunter is sympathetic (to a degree...she is sometimes SO lackluster as to be borderline boring as a character) and everyone around her is a cardboard villain. If it's a move about pica, we really never learn much about it. She has a terrible therapist and clearly doesn't get the help she needs. The film nicely shows us how her need to swallow dangerous objects is a deep compulsion and how awfully it impacts her physically (a couple of moments are certainly cringe-worthy) but we get no true insights into this disease.

I guess, in the end, I would say SWALLOW strained credulity just a little too much. Not because of the course of her disease...I assume it does cause self-destructive behavior like we're shown, but because of the poorly developed secondary characters. They don't behave like fully flesh-out people, but rather like caricatures. And these caricatures don't always behave in convincing ways. Certainly, we root for Hunter to "win" against the forces aligned against her...but I wouldn't say I was invested in the outcome. It's an interesting movie, but one I only recommend to viewers looking for something different and ambitious (and don't mind seeing that ambition come up short).

The good: this movie EXCELLS in it's mystery plot WHY a pregnant, happy woman has an urge to swallow objects like marbles and pins and other damaging objects. Excellent photography as well. And the leading actress is superb!

The bad: this movies mystery is too easily revealed in the second half and once the mystery is gone the excitement of this movie is gone as well. What a bummer.

It is still quite a good movie, but the plot is the biggest let down. There is some lack of credibility as well and in a drama I NEED CREDIBILITY. However small the part that was NOT credible, that part played a crucial role in the rest of the movie.

I would still recommend this movie, because it is a hardhitting plot with a moral message that needs to be heard...

Don´t expect any horror and thill. It´s a drama movie which contains a good portrait of a traumatized woman. Not more or less.

On the plus side this is a well-made movie and the location on the Hudson River above NYC is very picturesque. For me the main reason to enjoy this movie is the performance of Haley Bennett as the afflicted young wife, Hunter. She is really good in the role.

There is a malady called "pica" and if you look it up you'll find all those things depicted in this story, eating ice, swallowing metallic objects, eating paper, eating dirt, etc. The story attempts to tie Hunter's behavior to aspects of her birth and upbringing, and includes some sessions with a therapist, but the sum of its parts is muddled. We see the story arc but it does not tie up neatly into a whole story.

Hunter's new husband is the son of a very wealthy family and he himself is head of a corporation. The whole family, son, dad, mom, treat Hunter as a curiosity, a mystery to be solved, dictating what she should do, even forcing her to have a male nurse follow her at home 24/7 to make sure she quits swallowing things that might yet again send her to the hospital.

Naturally she reaches a breaking point and has to get out of the situation, but where does she go from there?

A moderately interesting movie, I watched it at home on DVD from my public library, my wife skipped.

Writer and director Carlo Mirabella-Davis delivers her feature debut "Swallow", a character study, a film built on psychology of abuse, isolation, alienation, depression and obsession. In its center, Haley Bennett puts on a great performance as a newly-wed, newly pregnant housewife who's psyche is slowly crumbling and who can't find any stable ground or control over her life. "Swallow" is a rarely rich movie, but not with plot, characters or action.

"Swallow" is a carefully and patiently composed psychological study, clothed up in pastel-like colors and sure-handed, competent and clean-feeling cinematography. The viewer follows Hunter (Haley Bennett) as she struggles to find an emotional ground in her new life in which she has rushed in unprepared. Even though Hunter has it all - wealth, money, free time - "Swallow" makes a good point in saying that materialistic means do not guarantee happiness. Hunter's husband and his family are a controlling, untrustworthy and egoistical bunch, making her suffer even more. Trying to escape the painful routine, Hunter develop a compulsive, obsessive habit to swallow various small things, rocks, needles, marbles, even batteries. On the journey we also learn about the weight of past traumas on her shoulders - on the journey to the eventual resurrection of the mind and free will. Haley Bennett shines all throughout this journey, in a brave and intimate portrayal of a troubled woman. "Swallow" isn't a plot-based movie, but that should already be apparent... It also doesn't exactly fit in the horror genre & long story short, the way its marketed could be misleading to a lot of people who'll like it less for those reasons. There's a level of absurdity and surrealism, but well self-acknowledged and tailored together truly tightly, making "Swallow" feel like a borderless yet solidified piece of mood and contemplation cinema. An art-house with such a psychological weight that it makes up in substance where plot and some other usual, conventional elements do not.

Despite "Swallow" being a successful and impressive oddball future cult drama presenting (always) relevant issues in women and, truthfully, the entire society, it also has flaws, like a pacing that is consistent to a fault (never really picks up), lack of story and the fact that it won't satisfy the more mainstream audiences. Not that I care much, I recommend this to those who get intrigued by what can be described as "odd" or "weird" as much as myself. My rating: 7/10.

An interesting take on a weird condition, Swallow is well-crafted, very captivating film. Yet it feels like it lacks depth, like it lacks a real vision of the world and the characters at its core beyond its aesthetic qualities. A film worth watching but in my opinion it is a bit vacuous.

An emotionally and technically layered film that delves deeply into a somewhat taboo and unconventional psychological topic. I think the best thing about this was the cinematography. It really complemented well with the theme and gave the movie its texture and depth. Unfortunately all the other aspects of the film looked mediocre and stale to me, and it failed to cause a strong emotional climax to viewers.

This movie is a perfect example of choosing a secure comfortable life over dreadful, unloving parents and uncaring family. It has been portrayed in many scenes that she wanted to be genuinely loved.

She once asked her husband 'Do you love me unconditionally?'. Also, She loves the garden and he explains about morning glories when her husband ignores her.

There were a lot of cues representing her mental dilemma and trauma. Her mother-in-law asks her 'You fake it till you make it. Are you done faking it?' So clearly she knows that her daughter-in-law struggling but she chooses to ignore it.

Also when explaining to her therapist she says 'My mom doesn't resist me and step-dad is great and sisters love me'.. and then there will be tears. Which means everything is opposite.

Subtle cues made an unloving girl start eating things which she likes just to feel 'she is in control' and she eats things which are indigestible just to portray her own life ..... SHE CAN NOT DIGEST HER LIFE.

Well made and well acted movie, but the movie spend too much time on the disorder (pica), how that works and plays out, and not enough on her situation with her family, her husband and his family. Because of that, it felt very much like an awareness movie without any real meaning, without anything thought provoking and without payoff.

In what could have been a very interesting exploration of Pica, the psychological disorder, the writers chose to tack in some arbitrary larger causation ark and it simply did not work. The performances were great, all around, the visual style and pace aren't the problem either.

Unfortunately the characters are one-dimensional caricatures who are not explored enough to justify the actions of themselves or the lead. In the end, the curiosity of the main theme is played down to focus on an apparent moral message.

It's great when movies have a message, but when they fake it, it undermines the whole experience. In this case it appears they had no idea what they were trying to communicate and this leaves you feeling very cheated. More so than if they had simply presented a stylised series of unconnected events.

"If the plot is piled up with unmitigated clichés (cruel, senseless rich people, good-hearted immigrants, a fable of perfect family of origin, the psychological manipulation of negging and nonpology, the list goes on and on...) and Mirabella-Davis might be a lousy fabulist, what gives vitality to SWALLOW, besides Katelin Arizmendi's stylish cinematography, is Bennett's metamorphic performance. A frail flower distressed by her parentage (the cat will be let out of the bag later) and conjugal negligence, Bennett, who looks like a poor girl's Jennifer Lawrence, grandly inhabits Hunter's compulsion, disorientation and exasperation with such astonishing finesses, one cannot take eyes off her. Even when we cannot relate to Hunter's weird condition, we are compulsively intrigued by Bennett's nuanced delivery and delicate mannerism, hoping some deus ex machina can materialize to save her."

read my full review on my blog: cinema omnivore, thanks

The cinematography is great, but it doesn't really save the film from its pitfalls. What would seem as an otherwise promising premise; it lacks in imagination.

The lead plays the part perfectly, but the story is incredibly bland and it wasn't as intense as anticipated.

By the time the credits rolled, it felt as though it was two steps ahead but lagged in execution. Whichever message they wanted to convey does not smoothly translate on screen.

Needless to say, it's watchable and oftentimes engaging enough to stick through, even if it gets lost in its own ambitions.