To the Bone is a Netflix original movie about the struggles of eating disorders. This movie focuses on a twenty-year-old named Eli who struggles with anorexia throughout her teenage life, she has been to multiple support groups to help her but nothing has worked. She gets into the most expensive, well known treatment home. The treatment home takes a different angle than any other treatment house she’s attended, it might be for the better or the worse.  

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To the Bone follows the ups and down of having eating disorders. I think it does a great job at demonstrating how people who have eating disorders live and how they think about things differently, especially food. The Movie also shows how they will do anything to not eat. To the Bone drags you into the story, you will get so enveloped into the movie you almost forget you are watching a movie. The actors and actresses do a great job at portraying kids with this mental illness. The writer of To the Bone, Marti Noxon, also struggled with anorexia in her earlier years so she knew what to write while also being aware of the struggles. The main character Lilly Collins—who plays Eli—struggled with an eating disorder in her teenage years. Both the writer and main character knew the struggles of this particular illness and I think that is what made the movie so real because they personally went through it themselves.

This movie was very serious at moments but there were instances of humor because Eli had a very sarcastic outlook on life. Though there is a lot of serious moments I don’t think they completely portrayed having an eating disorder the best they could. To the Bone almost romanticized having anorexia, they made it seem that you can live perfectly fine without eating the right amount of food every day. I don’t think that was the writer’s goal but movies nowadays tend to make everything look better than what it really is.

There was also some controversy during the making of the film because the main actress Lilly Collins—who has previously suffered from anorexia—lost twenty plus pounds to fit the role. The actress ended up looking like she was anorexic again which could have been very dangerous for her health. Overall, it was a great movie if you weren’t looking for an actual real-life anorexia story, To the Bone was the Hollywood version of eating disorders. I would give it a 7 out of 10 because it is a good movie to watch, but I don’t think it hits the audience hard enough with the consequences of not eating properly.