Sharing the Secret

This movie was a great educational piece for eating disorders. The acting was very good and the storyline flowed well. Mare Winningham and Alison Lohman deliver superb performances. The casting overall was well done.

The only thing I saw that is a criticism is Beth's therapist having with her mother and discussing Beth's case! HIPPA violation glalore. Plus patient confidentiality issues.

In the end this movie was well done and a good piece for teenagers or anyone with an eating disorder. I miss the kind of quality this movie exudes, they just do not make them like this anymore, much enjoyed this film.

This was surprisingly intelligent for a TV movie, and quite true to my own experience of bulimia. It was actually well-researched, and I can only assume it was written by someone who's gone through a similar experience, because it had all the little details. The characters were quite well-drawn, and the performances by Mare Winningham and Alison Lohman were great. I think what I like most was that they made them specific and smart, and there was no dumbing down of the reasons for Beth's bulimia (it wasn't some "diet gone out of control, caused by the pressures placed on girls by the media, pressures we're not actually going to address..."). Her mother wasn't completely clueless - too often on television they'll take an issue that EVERYONE has some awareness of and try to tell us that their protagonists are the last remaining people on earth who don't ("Diabetes? What's that? Oh, my world is all askew, doctor, please explain it all to me as if I'm a small child", etc). It was brilliant that her mother was a psychologist and even she didn't see the signs. And the scenes where Beth was throwing up weren't OVERLY melodramatic and sensationalist, and concentrated more on bulimics' need for secrecy, and their out-of-controlness. The scene where Beth tells her mother she's bulimic would've made me cry if there hadn't been other people in the room.

Okay, so I liked those bits. What didn't work for me so well was the ending, which headed back to the TV movie territory we know and don't particularly love, but I guess they had to wrap it up. "You, too, can cure your child's eating disorder, if you have lots and lots of money and live in America..."

And can I just say again that I really like Mare Winningham. She's great.

This was a pretty good movie, I liked it. I thought it was a pretty accurate look at bulimia and how it's not about dieting, it's about having a pain so deep that they have to find a way to deal with it and they choose this. Beth was a very accurately drawn character and in the scene where she confronts her mom about the eating disorder you can see the pain inside her and hear it in her voice and you know how deep the pain is that she is feeling. I also think one of the best lines in the movie is where Beth yells the words, "It's not about you." to her mother. Those words were so true and added so much to that scene in the movie. I think that that scene was definitely the most important scene in that movie.

Without a doubt one of the most well-acted television movies we have seen, that also managed to feel relatively accurate in it's portrayal of bulimia without ever being melodramatic or cheesy. Even comparing this to older television movies from the 80s and 90s, when TV movies were actually worth watching, this outshines a majority of them. One scene in particular where Beth reveals her eating disorder to her mom showcases just how talented both Lohman and Winningham are - you don't see acting this real or emotional very often, and there's a nuance to their performances that you wouldn't even expect in an Oscar-nominated film. Their performances also highlight some truly great writing.

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...........