‘Swallow’: An Unsettling Thriller That Isn’t For The Faint-Hearted

Swallow, starring Haley Bennett, is being released exclusively on MUBI on October 31 in select territories across Europe. This is a brilliantly unnerving psychological thriller written and directed by Carlo Mirabella-Davis, that had a brief theatrical release in the U.S. in March 2020.

Swallow isn’t a film for the faint-hearted. Some scenes are difficult to watch, but within this story of an eating disorder, is the story of a woman stuck in a quietly toxic relationship.

Swallow tells the story of Hunter (Haley Bennett), a young woman newly married to Richie (Austin Stowell). As his name implies, Richie is from a rich family and has just been given a promotion at his father’s company. The images that opens the film shows Hunter alone, cleaning the outdoor pool from falling leaves, unpacking boxes in a grand modern house. It is a quiet lonely life. Hunter seems to be living the life of a 1950s housewife, stuck at home. Her days are spent cleaning the house bought by her husband’s parents and making dinner while she waits for her husband to come home.

Soon after they’ve settled into their new home, Hunter finds out that she is pregnant. As Richie’s family grow increasingly controlling, Hunter begins to feel the compulsion to eat inedible objects, starting with a marble. The objects she swallows will become more and more dangerous.

Swallow is a quietly tense thriller unfolding within the confines of the home. There is a sense of calm in the images that contrast with what Hunter is doing. It is an unsettling calmness.

There is one family unit, Richie and his parents, and Hunter never seems to be fully accepted into it, the film keeps suggesting. The moment Richie announces to his parents that Hunter is expecting, shows her alone on the couch, while he is off-frame, but reflected on the glossy black wall, on the phone to his parents. She is entirely alone, isolated from her husband and his parents, and from the outside world.

The condition depicted in Swallow is called “pica,” a compulsion to consume inedible objects and materials. It is commonly pregnant women and children that are affected by this compulsion. Mirabella-Davis did thorough research on pica and OCD behaviors in general, consulting a world’s leading medical expert Dr. Rachel Bryant-Waugh, who wrote a case study of the protagonist, Hunter.

The reasons for developing pica are not entirely known. Swallow here implies that this eating disorder is induced as a coping mechanism. The film shows Hunter to be continually undermined by her husband and his parents in a passively aggressive way. The way Hunter is so often rudely interrupted when talking emphasizes the way she is completely disregarded by them. Swallowing these inedible, and increasingly dangerous, objects clearly appeases Hunter, when faced with the toxicity of Richie and his parents.

Swallow is an excellent debut feature from Carlo Mirabella-Davis, with executive producer Joe Wright and with the visceral images from cinematographer Katelin Arizmendi. Haley Bennett, who previously starred in the recently released Netflix
NFLX
film The Devil all the Time, does give a striking performance in Swallow. There is something incredibly touching in the way that she portrays this soft-spoken young woman suffering from an eating disorder and a toxic relationship.

Swallow was released by IFC Films in U.S. theaters on March 6, but with the corona virus outbreak it was soon released onto digital platforms. Swallow is now showing on MUBI exclusively in LATAM (ex. Mexico), Netherlands, Scandinavia, India, Greece, Czech Republic & Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, South Africa, Indonesia, and non-exclusively in Australia. The film is available via Prime Video in the U.S. and the U.K.