Perfect Body

Perfect Body is a thoughtful drama with a strong story line about a young gymnast, Andie Bradley (Amy Jo Johnson) who develops several eating disorders while trying to achieve the perfect body.

This is a movie filled with gymnastics, drama and tissue alerts and is DEFINITELY worth seeing.

Perfect plot, perfect actors, perfect script, perfect!

"Perfect body" suffers from being a made-for-TV movie principally in the quality of the cinematography and in the realism of the gymnastics--these girls were nowhere near Olympic level, I'm told, though I am not really one to judge. Yet what "Perfect Body" lacks in this luster it more than makes up for in the quality of the writing and acting, and considering the primitivity of the shooting equipment, the cameraman captured the essence of each scene and character emotion very well. Amy Jo Johnson is more than convincing as a perfectionist suffering from anorexia nervosa (contrary to the description, the film does not once claim that she is bulimic and in fact she is more of a gorge-and- purge type anorectic than a true bulimic). The film's portrayal of the debilitating effects of nervous anxieties--and of the extreme difficulty that sufferers tend to have in getting or accepting help even when they know they need it and even want it, and of the resulting sense of isolation and fright of the sufferer and sense of helplessness of her entourage-- strikes a powerful chord. Definitely worth a couple of hours.

I almost passed this movie as some fluff from a Power Ranger. What a mistake that would have been. Amy Jo Johnson turned in a powerful performance as a young woman so caught up in chasing perfection that she will sacrifice anything to get it. This film was a powerful statement about the pressure that is put on young athletes by themselves and others. This isn't a fluff piece and it will make you think but it's still entertaining. It's worth catching on TV.

The film is very good. The main actress acted very well and so did the actor, whose character's name was Josh. His real name is Ron. The film correctly portrays the sacrifices and hard work an olympic trainee has to go through. It also deals with the common practice among young girls of eating then vomiting just to lose weight and be smart.

This movie was great for a Sunday afternoon cheesy Lifetime movie, but a few things in it were so unrealistic that it just about drove me crazy.

My biggest complaint was that the gymnastics that these girls were shown doing were nowhere near the olympic level, which they claimed to be. The vaults were especially ridiculous. I mean, I did some of those vaults when I was ten years old, and I wasn't anywhere near olympic level (I was level 6, elite is level 10).

Also, Amy Jo Johnson's character's eating disorder just sort of suddenly went away when she realized it was harming her. A more realistic eating disorder movie is Sharing The Secret.