The film follows Riley, a young woman fresh out of hospital for an eating disorder who is trying to navigate mental health issues and her own self destructive tendencies to live, and love again, despite herself.
I guess Brittany Snow directed this film as she had experienced similar problems in her life. Perhaps it was cathartic to portray what young girls can go through, perhaps she just wanted to get the message out to people to raise awareness of how life can be for some people, and how hard it is to keep an even mental keel, when the world seems to be teetering under your very feet.
The irritating thing is you can feel and appear to be fine and on top of the world. Then there's a trigger and suddenly your brain convinces you to think that you're unworthy, life is unworthy, everyone around you is better than you, you have no meaning or value, and yet deep down you know you do, and the dichotic maelstrom of emotion can tear you apart.
It seems to be becoming more common too with young people, perhaps brought on by TV standards, and then film standards, and now the internet bringing standards that people...mostly women...feel are impossible to live up to and if they can't then they are unworthy. They can't find how to be happy anymore. And of course no-one knows how best to treat even their close friends when they're like this. It's an epidemic and Snow brings this into focus to show us all what it can be like.
The cast is fabulous, Courtney Eaton slays this role and I believe everything she is going through. The situations, the contradictions, the failed romance, the struggle and then the acceptance. And thankfully it is not ruined by an awful music soundtrack. The score is unobtrusive and sympathetic and sometimes there is no sound at all, and that's very powerful.
I loved this from start to finish and I think it's beautifully and passionately and sympathetically done, so I give it a strong 8.
