Swallow

Hunter has married into a wealthy family and spends her days alone in a glass house by the river. After she learns she is pregnant a strange habit begins: she swallows things that are not food. First a marble, then a thumbtack, then a battery. The medical name is pica. After emergency surgery her husband and his parents move to control her rather than support her. Eventually she leaves the house to find her biological father. Carlo Mirabella-Davis wrote and directed. Haley Bennett plays Hunter. He took the idea from his own grandmother's obsessive-compulsive disorder, and said plainly why he chose pica over hand-washing: it was more cinematic. It was shot in a glass house on the Hudson in New York, and the house itself is the film's strongest image. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 87 percent, the consensus praising Bennett's powerful leading performance. Some critics faulted the film for treating the disorder with kid gloves. The box office stopped at 274,674 dollars; it opened in March 2020, in the middle of the pandemic shutdowns. Who it is for: viewers who like quiet thrillers and stories of women under control. Who it is not for: anyone who cannot watch the swallowing. The film holds those moments in close-up and does not look after you.