There’s something fitting about the fact that Carlo Mirabella-Davis’ “Swallow” — a provocative and frequently brilliant thriller about the patriarchal control over female bodies — is set in a purgatorial stretch of upstate New York that’s roughly equidistant from both Jeanne Dielman’s home at 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels, and the arid San Fernando Valley that almost suffocates Carol White to death in “Safe.” While he might not possess Chantal Akerman’s visionary patience, or exhibit Todd Haynes’ singular talent for mining horror from metaphor, Mirabella-Davis has crafted a sharp and surprising modern fable around a woman whose environment has been weaponized against her since birth.

The submissive but subtly demented housewife of a standard-issue Patrick Bateman wannabe (Austin Stowell), Hunter…

true unhappiness cannot be fully repressed. it physically manifests, no matter how glossy the plasticine smile, how pristine the glass house. sometimes you need tangible proof that your pain isn’t just in your head. 

a hybrid of domestic horror and psychological drama, as well as an ode to the sacred privacy of bathrooms, Swallow centers on newlywed and newly pregnant housewife Hunter (haley bennett). she lives in an immaculate upstate new york estate with her boring rich husband, where she’s stifled by her overbearing in-laws and constant domestic duties. despite the fact that she has everything society tells her she should want, she’s deeply unfulfilled. this second-wave “problem that has no name” eventually transforms into something that does: pica, an…

First of all, ouch.

Swallow is a really interesting film, about a very real condition. If we look at it from a first-level narrative, it hits all the right spots regarding the origins of such an illness, as well as the behaviours/stances towards it. Obsessive-compulsive disorders and complusion-including ailments like pica, are often tightly connected to a longing for control, as well as a need for self-worth. The depiction of these needs is accurately put on display in the movie, and in some moments, some unexpected turns where taken (it actually reminded of an addiction).

On a deeper level, the effort to reclaim self-determination from the binds of a patriarchic state is a daily struggle in the lives of women…

The The on the soundtrack is always gonna get some extra praise from me...

In all seriousness though, this is a pretty clever little horror film.

We follow Haley Bennett's Hunter - an obedient housewife, stuck in her beautiful home, slowly watching her life pass by as she cleans, puts up the drapes, thinks about making flowerbeds and generally stares out the window.. until she picks up a small marble.

Whilst on the surface the central conceit of the movie is that this woman is swallowing things, underneath all that is an observation of a how she has married into an imposing family of successful people who look down on her, expect her to follow a certain path of "choices"…

“Are you happy or are you pretending to be happy?”

Swallow is a movie that will make your stomach hurts or make your legs feel limp. I honestly enjoyed this 1-hour long movie. So, I will write down my perspective on this one.

Cons: This movie trying to delivered about mental health that is usually considered taboo. It pictured how hunter's husband and his family reacted to her condition. But Honestly, what are they trying to say? are they feel pity for her? or ashamed? It kinda felt unclear to me. It feels rushed in the first fifteen minutes. I think I will enjoy it a lot more if they explore Hunter's state of mind before this pica disorder happened,…

TLC’s My Strange Addiction gets the arthouse treatment in this provocative domestic horror film that calls to mind mid-career David Cronenberg. Blending psychological turmoil with bodily functions in a cold, detached world of a corporate housewife completely removed from all agency,

Starring Haley Bennet, who has pretty much been encompassed in a steely glacial house film with glazed glass and always towered by the pristine hollow IKEA Art Deco interiors. She’s a newly wedded woman to a narcissistic CEO to a huge family business, free to bring friends around to party whilst leaving her alone completely isolated around the world. Her lack of independence and control goes overboard when her news of her pregnancy reaches her in-laws who already declare…