It also stops the audience from really connecting with Ellen’s pain. Focusing on calorie counting and other behaviours distracts from the deep suffering that Ellen is experiencing. I like that To the Bone highlights this but I felt it lacked a depth exploration, particularly in the therapy scenes. This is not about blaming families, rather, thinking systemically about what is really going on within the whole family system. The tragedy is that the whole family is in crisis but the focus turns to the ‘sick child’ (who often feels like the problem). Her body and her relationship with food, express what her words cannot. The child with the eating disorder is often expressing the dysfunction within the family system she does this through her behaviours and symptoms.
This is concerning considering in nearly 20 years of working with women with food, weight and body image concerns, almost every client I have worked with has grown up in a family where she has suffered at very least childhood emotional neglect, at worse, narcissistic wounding and complex trauma related to experiences within the family system. There is sometimes a reluctance amongst eating disorder therapists to talk about how certain parenting styles contribute to the development of the eating disorder. Ellen’s mother and step mother are completely unaware of Ellen’s needs and are distracted by their own lives. We don’t see the father throughout the movie – he is physically and emotionally absent. To the Bone starts by highlighting the relationships between Ellen and her family. Here are my thoughts about To the Bone (with spoilers): The focus on the dysfunctional relationships within Ellen’s family system
The only real disappointment for me is that it lacked a depth exploration of the main character Ellen’s suffering and what it really takes to recover. From this place, I didn’t find it as bad as some of the reviews because it does raise some important talking points. Unfortunately that means it can’t be representative of all people who suffer and all types of eating disorders. I viewed To the Bone as a slice of one person’s struggle, at one point in time. As a former long-time sufferer of bulimia and as a counsellor and psychotherapist on the Northern Beaches of Sydney who has worked for nearly 20 years with women suffering with eating disorders – I get it. There is a lot of controversy surrounding the Netflix movie, To the Bone.
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