[Warning: General spoilers in article, images, and preview].
Body image issues crosses gender and span age, and one of the side effects of the omnipresence of the Web is that there is no shortage of sites to feed whichever demons plague you. Lifetime gets serious this Saturday with Starving in Suburbia, an unflinching look at what happens when anorexia indiscriminately takes hold in a suburban family home.
The cast is solid. Callie Thorne (Necessary Roughness) plays a mother who steps in when she realizes her children’s full activities have masked something awful going on in her own home. Judging Amy‘s Marcus Giamatti plays her husband, Laura Wiggins (The Tomorrow People/Shameless) is their daughter, Hannah, and Brendan Meyer (Mr. Young) plays their son, Leo. Sharon Lawrence also appears as a counselor trying to help. Tara Miele (who directed Gone Missing for Lifetime last year–it repeats Sunday) directs her own script.
The story follows Hannah as she is intrigued by the online anorexia culture, and then consumed by it while her friends and family desperately try to reach her. And then something unexpected (but not really) shakes her from her fog and makes her get help. Anorexia stories are not new–Jennifer Jason Leigh set the bar for them back in 1981 with The Best Little Girl in the World–but I’m pretty sure this is the first one to tell the tale with the Web as a huge factor. It’s a compelling film, updated for the Internet age, and if it helps one person get help, or one parent step in, it’s done its job.
Here’s the official logline: When seventeen year old Hannah stumbles upon an online community devoted to anorexia as a life choice, she becomes an obsessive follower of the site founder, ButterflyAna. By the time Hannah’s family realizes what is happening and get Hannah the help she needs, the disease has fully taken hold and Hannah is refusing to eat. Will this family be able to exorcise the demon of anorexia from their lives, or is it too late?
Starving in Suburbia airs this Saturday on Lifetime at 8/7c and repeats at midnight/11 p. Here’s a sneak peek.
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