Swallow: An Unusual and Powerful Feminist Thriller
Swallow is the narrative feature debut from writer/director Carlo Mirabella-Davis. Starring Haley Bennett (The Girl on the Train) in a powerhouse performance and composed with the refined quality of a seasoned filmmaker, Mirabella-Davis crafts a provocative and squirm-inducing psychological thriller about one woman's reclamation of her independence in the face of an oppressive system. Ripe with drama and dripping with juicy social commentary, this compelling feminist thriller will take you for a ride you won’t soon forget.
Hunter (Haley Bennett), a newly pregnant housewife, finds herself increasingly compelled to consume dangerous objects. As her husband, Richie (Austin Stowell), and his family tighten their control over her life, she must confront the dark secret behind her new obsession.
While explosive and powerful debuts naturally appear in all manner of genres, no genre has been utilized — especially over the last decade — to quite the same effect as horror. Recently, we’ve seen a rise in films that use horror as a platform for social commentary and as a means of exploring deep emotional truths, in addition to delivering thrills and chills — Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook, Robert Eggers’ The VVitch, Julia Ducournau’s Raw, Jordan Peele’s Get Out, and Ari Aster’s Hereditary being a few that instantly spring to mind. It’s difficult not to feel a bit spoiled, since it seems more and more commonplace for new filmmakers to emerge on the scene fully formed. It’s a wonderful “problem” to have, and it’s one that doesn’t show any signs of slowing down, since we have another great debut feature to add to the ever-growing pile.
Hunter (played terrifically by Haley Bennett) is a newly married housewife living with her well-to-do husband, Richie (played by Austin Stowell) in his exquisitely elegant home in Poughkeepsie. Isolated from her friends and family, and with only Richle’s parents (Elizabeth Marvel and David Rasche) in near proximity to keep her company, Hunter is literally a slave to her environment, as she waits around for her husband to return home from work, playing Candy Crush or tweaking the house in an effort to try to stay sane. The little engagement she gets from her husband, who treats her more like a trophy than a wife, and his family, who dislike her for her common background and for marrying their son (and who don’t seem to know anything about her), isn’t enough to hold Hunter’s sanity. Between her inactivity and Richie’s family’s controlling tendencies, Hunter feels understandably powerless, but when she discovers that she’s newly pregnant and no longer has control over her own body, something within her snaps, and she begins eating dangerous objects (a condition known as Pica).
Although Swallow is more of a tense psychological thriller than a straight-up horror, it’s noticeably streaked with elements of body horror (a la David Cronenberg), and it uses its grotesque quirk as a believable foundation to explore its central subject matter with more profound — and surprising — depth. Its strongest and most interesting asset is in how Mirabella-Davis uses Hunter’s fixation — something which is a direct response to her environment and the people in it — as a means to making a personal breakthrough. Hunter’s actions make for an interesting (yet unsubtle) statement of rebellion, an odd attempt to reclaim control over her body, and it winds up to a shocking and provocative climax. This creates conversation by challenging the typical notion of mental illness as an inherent negative and exploring the potential of an illness being a path to tremendously cathartic self-discovery.
If you took Terrence Malick’s naturalism and ability to capture the internal headspace of his characters visually, and combined it with Todd Haines’ stylish psychological drama Safe and Roman Polanski’s Repulsion and Rosemary’s Baby, you’d have something close to Swallow. It’s not entirely original, and it wears its influences visibly on its sleeve, but it’s so compelling and exceptionally made that we were able to look past this fact entirely. The cinematography from Katelin Arizmendi is stunning, and Mirabella-Davis’ direction is focused and precise; the pair do wonders with negative space and composition, keeping Hunter centered in the frame to create the feel of her being consumed by her surroundings. They give Richie and Hunter’s chic, modernist home an element of danger by incorporating as many sharp right angles as possible. They also incorporate a lot of glass (or glass-like surfaces) as a visual motif, which is nicely contrasted by Hunter’s character, who is, for all intents and purposes, a pane of glass that’s slowly fracturing.
The 50s-style melodrama, body horror, and tense psychology of the film are all twisted into a tasty alchemy that is further enhanced by Haley Bennett, who delivers a performance on the level of Gena Rowlands in A Woman Under the Influence. She fully immerses herself into the role and really goes for broke, and it all pays off big. The film traverses some dark terrain and ventures into to wholly surprising territory in its last act before landing on its powerful final image, making Carlo Mirabella-Davis another new filmmaker to keep your eye on. Knowing anything more would spoil its many surprises, so just dive in and let this one swallow you up.
Recommendation: If you like compelling dramas with a powerhouse lead performance and horror slant, definitely give this one a watch. The film is available on demand currently.
Rating: 4 lambs outta 5.
Hungry for more?! Check out the links below:
Carlo Mirabella-Davis Interview (transcribed)
Carlo Mirabella-Davis Interview (podcast)
What do you think? We want to know. Share your thoughts and feelings in the comments section below, and as always, remember to viddy well!