Feed [2017] focuses on the perils and effects of a major life change. It follows a year in the life of Olivia Grey (Troian Bellisario; Pretty Little Liars) and her struggle with anorexia nervosa, which she developed after a deplorable experience, turned her life upside down.
Mental Illness isn’t just on the inside. There have been countless films on mental illness made and remade, even recently with Netflix’s new Lily Collins film To The Bone, but I found the deliverance on how Olivia deals with her rapidly growing development to be very intriguing. Without giving too much of the plot away, we watch as a horrible event throws Olivia’s life a curveball. Like, out of the park, that balls over the fence. With senior year beginning, her academic career at its prime and needing to stay there this is the last thing she needs and the first thing on her mind.
Clichés aren’t always bad. The major downside of this film was that all of the characters were a cliché – you have the nerdy high school girl who just wants to get good grades and go home and do her homework, her nosy brother who is ‘just trying to look out for her’, the love interest, a pushy dad and an oblivious mother. The only thing different was we didn’t have the girl best friend who our main character gets into an argument with – we have a love interest and best friend rolled into one. In saying they’re cliché, the difference in characters kept the movie moving, and even though they were all your typical Hollywood characters they were all varied and gave the story life. Great acting goes a long way with keeping the story moving, and although we have Spencer Hastings and Draco Malfoy himself as the two main characters, we also have a talented pool of lesser-known actors and are really transformed into the lives of these people.
Pacing. Pacing. Pacing. The pace of a film is very important. Without realizing it you’re moved through a film because of the pace of it and that’s what keeps you intrigued. If you’re watching a car race scene it’ll be quite quick and sharp, with lots of upbeat sound effects and music, whereas if you’re watching a funeral scene there’ll be long shots and harmonic and slow tones throughout. The pacing of this film rises quickly before dipping and staying low for a majority of the film, although it drags for around twenty minutes of the film it builds again and brings us into the end, pushing the story to the closing credits and our emotions on a rollercoaster of ups and downs.
Low Budget? Count me in! (And my dollars too!) When people think of lower budget films they probably think student films or short films, but bigger films can be low budget as well. While a lot of them are horror films, (did you know the first Saw movie only had a budget of $1.2 million and made over $103 million? True story!) there are films out there that can be made for cheap. While I don’t know exact numbers for this film the use of flashbacks, majority same locations, mostly unknown actors and a lot of nighttime shooting would’ve cut the cost of the film a lot and I find that very clever and didn’t make the film lack in appearance or deliverance in any way.
Experience is key. A lot of the best writing is done by people who have experienced personally what they’re writing about and I think that the way this film was written and how we see what this disease is like and the effects it carries on, not only the person who is suffering, but the people closest to them really speaks volumes and you can tell that it was from a personal experience. Feed is based on Troian’s personal experience with anorexia nervosa and you can see through her writing of the script and approach to playing Olivia that it was definitely a personal subject and really took the film to that next level.
With her breakout performance from playing Spencer Hastings in the Freeform hit drama Pretty Little Liars, this self lived-written-produced-acted film from Troian Bellisario is sure to make anyone feel hungry.
