Taglines: Are you happy or are you pretending to be happy?
Swallow Movie Storyline. Against the backdrop of insufferable domestic ennui, the soft-spoken former saleswoman and newlywed housewife, Hunter (Haley Bennett), is struggling to stretch the bars of her gilded cage, a lavish and immaculate modernist villa in New York, even though she seems to have it all.
But, more and more, as sad Hunter tries, unsuccessfully, to meet her controlling family’s expectations, compliance turns into submission, obedience transforms into obsession, and pica, a compulsive eating disorder, starts to take over. Now, swallowing non-nutritive objects and engaging in increasingly impossible tasks becomes Hunter’s dangerous newfound addiction, and there’s no telling how far she’ll go to maintain a false and fleeting sense of power. Who can save Hunter from herself?
Swallow is a 2019 psychological thriller film written and directed by Carlo Mirabella-Davis and starring Haley Bennett, Austin Stowell, Elizabeth Marvel, David Rasche, and Denis O’Hare. Its plot follows a young woman who, emotionally stifled in her marriage and domestic life, develops an impulse to consume inedible objects. The film had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 28, 2019. It was released in France on January 15, 2020, by UFO Distribution, and in the United States on March 6, 2020, by IFC Films.
About the Story
Hunter, a young woman from a lower-working-class family, has recently married Richie, a man from a wealthy family who is set to take over as CEO of his father’s Manhattan corporation. This affords Hunter the ability to stay at home in the couple’s lavish upstate New York home. Despite this,
Hunter finds herself emotionally stifled and isolated in both her marriage and domestic life, while Richie is distant and inconsiderate toward her. For example, at a dinner with Richie’s parents to congratulate the young couple on their pregnancy, Hunter is enticed to tell a story, only to be interrupted by her father-in-law zoning out and asking Richie about business. One day while home alone, Hunter develops the impulse to eat a marble. She finds it exhilarating and begins to consume other inedible objects around the house, including thumbtacks, metal figurines, and batteries.
Hunter becomes pregnant and the sonogram technician notices an anomaly in her abdomen during the routine ultrasound. She is rushed in for emergency surgery to remove a variety of objects trapped in her intestine. Hunter is diagnosed with pica, a psychological disorder that compels individuals to eat inedible objects. Richie’s parents, Katherine and Michael, arrange for her to see a psychiatrist in the city. During her therapy sessions, Hunter says she swallows the objects because she likes the feel of their textures in her mouth.
Richie hires Luay, a family friend and immigrant from Syria, to monitor Hunter while he is at work. Hunter, feeling smothered, is initially hostile toward Luay, who dismisses her mental illness as resulting from her privileged life. In therapy, she eventually reveals she was not raised by her biological father and has never met him, though she knows his name and keeps a picture of him. She was conceived as a result of her mother’s rape at the hands of a strange man she had met in a bar. The rapist served time in prison for the crime.
One afternoon, Hunter overhears Richie speaking with her psychiatrist on the phone, and realizes Richie has financially bribed the doctor to reveal the content of her sessions. This sends Hunter into a panic, and she swallows a miniature screwdriver. Luay finds her choking violently, and calls 9-1-1.
After undergoing surgery to remove the screwdriver, Michael and Katherine arrange to have Hunter committed to a psychiatric hospital for the next seven months until she delivers the baby, threatening that Richie will divorce her. Luay, who has warmed to Hunter, allows her to flee into the woods, and stages it to appear as though she had escaped.
Swallow (2020)
Directed by: Carlo Mirabella-Davis
Starring: Haley Bennett, Austin Stowell, Elizabeth Marvel, David Rasche, Denis O’Hare, Lauren Vélez, Zabryna Guevara, Laith Nakli, Babak Tafti, Nicole Kang, Kathleen Butler, Elise Santora
Screenplay by: Carlo Mirabella-Davis
Production Design by: Erin Magill
Cinematography by: Katelin Arizmendi
Film Editing by: Joe Murphy
Costume Design by: Liene Dobraja
Set Decoration by: Frank Baran
Music by: Nathan Halpern
MPAA Rating: R for language, some sexuality and disturbing behavior.
Distributed by: IFC Films
Release Date: April 28, 2019 (Tribeca), January 15, 2020 (France), March 6, 2020 (United States)
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