Sharing the Secret

If you havn't seen this movie I highly recommend you do.It's an excellent true story.I love Alison Lohman she is so talented side note: I also loved her in 7th heaven.The whole story line is amazing and the way they chose there characters waz awesome. The acting in this film is

very awesome.

This is a film which should be seen by anybody interested in, effected by, or suffering from an eating disorder. It is an amazingly accurate and sensitive portrayal of bulimia in a teenage girl, its causes and its symptoms. The girl is played by one of the most brilliant young actresses working in cinema today, Alison Lohman, who was later so spectacular in 'Where the Truth Lies'. I would recommend that this film be shown in all schools, as you will never see a better on this subject. Alison Lohman is absolutely outstanding, and one marvels at her ability to convey the anguish of a girl suffering from this compulsive disorder. If barometers tell us the air pressure, Alison Lohman tells us the emotional pressure with the same degree of accuracy. Her emotional range is so precise, each scene could be measured microscopically for its gradations of trauma, on a scale of rising hysteria and desperation which reaches unbearable intensity. Mare Winningham is the perfect choice to play her mother, and does so with immense sympathy and a range of emotions just as finely tuned as Lohman's. Together, they make a pair of sensitive emotional oscillators vibrating in resonance with one another. This film is really an astonishing achievement, and director Katt Shea should be proud of it. The only reason for not seeing it is if you are not interested in people. But even if you like nature films best, this is after all animal behaviour at the sharp edge. Bulimia is an extreme version of how a tormented soul can destroy her own body in a frenzy of despair. And if we don't sympathise with people suffering from the depths of despair, then we are dead inside.

This is the only movie I've ever seen that actually represents the feelings wrapped up in an eating disorder. That scene when she tells her mom, oh my god, that was pretty much me. Actually, the whole movie is pretty much my story. So the character 'Beth' is absolutely amazing, I think, in a painful way of course. Brilliantly acted, too. The only thing that really bothers me, is how it ends with her fake smile again, and her thoughts that life can only be superficial... It kills me. Plus, that anorexic therapist, who is obviously still so insecure and only thinking about doing and saying the right thing... Awful. And her mom, who apparently just wants her daughter to be well, since whenever she's angry, her mom turns her the cold shoulder, and Beth comes crawling back, of course. It's so painful to watch, I would much rather have seen her mom just being confronted and Beth being taken care of and made stronger and comforted to realize that the world can actually be really hopeful, and joyful, and great. Hmm, bit of a psychobabble, but obviously this movie means a lot to me.

Right i'm not going to waste time being complacent, sorry to gush but i loved this movie, not before has such an accurate and true portrayal of the silent epidemic of bulimia nervosa been witnessed on celluloid.

Everything in this movie not only mirrored my own experiences but bared witness to the underlying emotions, the driving force behind such self-destruction, when Beth glares ineptly into the mirror at her self as her friend tells her she doesn't have to do it because she's already skinny and she screams "i do it because i'm messed up" i can't help but want to embrace the writer , i may write a letter of thanks, but at least the curtain veil on the real reason behind Ed's are finally being revealed, to quote the reviewer before me it's not some diet "gone wrong".

Back to the film, very strong and nonchalant performances from Mare Winningham and Alison Lohman, the first part of the movie see's us adapt to Beth as a person and what's going on in her life, here i feel the point wavers slightly, it's the "classic" scenario, nice kid, high achiever but hides a deeply embedded insecurity. It really carries it's weight in the last forty five minutes as we see Beth come to terms with recovery, i must say the scene were Beth tells her mother she's bulimic has to be one of the most heart rendering and accurate ever, (well maybe not ever) but the point is it really conveys the sense of awkwardness of it all, her mothers disbelief, the shouting, the crying, Beth's cries are enough to make even the hardest of people wail, it's the epitome of desperation leaking out and i defy anyone not to feel a pang of sadness. What was also so brilliant about this film was the fact that Beth's mum was a therapist but even she failed to notice what was happening to her daughter, it really is shocking, nothing in the move is ever overly dramatised and kudos to the end scene in which it is not so glaringly obvious that Beth is over her disorder yet, anyone who's had any kind of Ed knows it is not that easy to get over...........

This film rubbed me in some uncomfortable ways but opened my eyes. It truly does portray the realness of an eating disorder.

The main character does a wonderful job acting her part. A great movie to show young teenagers in high school too.

Just a very sad concept.