Swallow (2019)
(On Cable TV, September 2022) In transgressive cinema taking on extreme psychological issues, there’s a delicate balance between putting up a freak show and being a responsible filmmaker. I would argue that the best approach is an over-the-top one that makes social responsibility irrelevant—if a comedy is so ridiculous, no one will care about the deviation from reality. At the other end of the scale, filmmakers can make the sensitive drama that they want, but they should then not go wallowing in transgressive moments that may bring the whole tonal balance down. Unfortunately, Swallow gets the balance wrong. It’s super-serious, super-clinical in its depiction of pica, a disorder in which someone eats objects not meant to be consumed. In Swallow’s quasi-clinical approach, this means that we’ll squirm in seeing a doll-like protagonist (Haley Bennett, suitably cute) ingest marbles, batteries and a thumbtack—to deleterious effect. This is all meant to illustrate a deeper problem—her pampered existence as a housewife to a wealthy man and her aimlessness of purpose. Maybe she should have learned how to code. But such sarcasm feels unwarranted in the light of the film’s solemn yet exploitative treatment of its subject. There’s a clear undercurrent of body horror (as in: absence of bodily autonomy) throughout much of Swallowed, but it seems deployed both for shock, transgression and high drama. The protagonist eventually becomes pregnant and… oh, I’ve said too much already. The plotting gets wilder as it goes on, peeling off evermore-troubling layers to the lead’s shaky mental health. The film thus zig-zags between exploitation and serious issues, never quite committing to horror or to drama. The result, as uncomfortable as it is, ends up being the worst of both worlds: never zany enough to get to the end of its thematic concerns, but not completely comfortable with the strictures of the sober, meticulously art-directed drama it portrays itself to be. Writer-director Carlo Mirabella-Davis takes a swing and a miss here—much better than not taking a swing at all, but not quite as satisfying as a solid hit could have been.