Title: To The Bone
MPAA Rating: TV-MA
Director: Marti Noxon
Starring: Lily Collins, Liana Liberato, Keanu Reeves
Runtime: 1 hr 47 mins
What It Is: Ellen (Collins) is a young woman suffering from an eating disorder. With her mother Susan (Carrie Preston) concerned about her she sends her to Dr. Beckham’s home to live. This home is designed specifically for people with eating disorders. As Ellen’s self-esteem issues and disorder escalate she may or may not live to see the fruits of the doctor’s labor or will she become just another unfortunate statistic regarding teenage girls and eating disorders?
What We Think: Mediocre at best this is a sterling example of how not to garner sympathy for your protagonist. At no point in the film do you feel sympathetic to Ellen. She’s insufferable at best throughout most of this. Keanu acts well enough and he’s super likable. Lily Collins acts well but I think the combo of the director and the script let her down. Netflix continues to struggle with making their own films here in 2017. You Get Me was really not good. As they continue to bring more stories to life we’ll judge mediocrity like this against whatever comes out.
Our Grade: C, This is one you can skip. It tries really hard to manipulate its audience into buying what it’s selling unfortunately what it’s selling is a really bad film with good performances. So hard skip perhaps Netflix can get me back with the other originals it has coming up. We’ll see what happens as we move through the remainder of the year. Go watch Lily Collins in something far better. She has several options outside of this. Nonetheless, Netflix needs to step it’s game up…like NOW!