“Swallow” is a fascinating film that came out in the summer of 2020, otherwise known as the lost summer due to the Corona Virus. It was released on VOD from IFC Films and is the debut feature from writer/director Carlo Mirabella-Davis.
The film stars Haley Bennett as Hunter, a young lonely housewife, who we find out has a lot of repressed psychological baggage. She has just married into an extremely wealthy family and has no need to work. She is treated just as another accessory to her husband Richie, played by Austin Stowell. Richie is your average rich, white, douche bag. He and his family all treat Hunter like crap if they acknowledge her at all. This is expressed in a painfully awkward dinner where Hunter is embarrassed in front of everyone. She is very quiet and always looks to be preoccupied in her own head, lost in a world of her own. Her one and only purpose is to get pregnant in order to give Richie an heir to the family fortune. This doesn’t take very long as Hunter quickly becomes pregnant.
Aside from the characters, there are two themes that run throughout the film. What I like to call the “grossness” of food and then the use of color. The movie opens with lambs being slaughtered and prepared. With a title like “Swallow”, it seems like all of the food is made to look unappetizing. Color is used in a big way in the design of the whole look of the film. From the pink window film in the nursery, the clothes, and as so many other little things too numerous to list.
Hunter’s mother-in-law Katherine is another controlling influence that has entered her life. Hunter has become trapped and not even in control of her own life until she takes some drastic steps to take it back. She has this box of trinkets and small items and takes out a marble, looking at it for a moment she puts it in her mouth and swallows it. A little later in the bathroom, she passes it, cleans it off, and sets it on her vanity. This is only the beginning as she tries other things and arrives at the cringe-inducing push pin, which takes two tries to swallow. It is eventually passed in a bloody mess. Hunter has a known psychological disorder called pica, an impulse to swallow things. She is found out while getting an ultrasound to check on her baby. They find numerous things inside her which failed to pass. This sends her to the emergency room for extraction and later a trip to the psychiatrist. Richie’s family hires an ex-Syrian soldier to look after her and basically turn her into a prisoner. She forms a connection with the gruff-looking man named Luay as they both seem to share a dark sadness within them.
“Swallow” as a title has a number of meanings in the story and could have easily gone the route of the cheesy Lifetime movie of the week, which it kind of does at some points, but Mirabella-Davis invests in the character of Hunter. The all-around craftsmanship and look of the film bring it up a notch. Although its far from a perfect movie I found it to be an interesting and entertaining film in the year that had so little to offer.