X
- 2020
- R
- IFC Films
- 1 h 34 m
- 2020
- R
- IFC Films
- 1 h 34 m
Summary On the surface, Hunter (Haley Bennett) appears to have it all. A newly pregnant housewife, she seems content to spend her time tending to an immaculate home and doting on her Ken-doll husband, Richie (Austin Stowell). However, as the pressure to meet her controlling in-laws and husband's rigid expectations mounts, cracks begin to appear ...
Directed By: Carlo Mirabella-Davis
Written By: Carlo Mirabella-Davis
- 2020
- R
- IFC Films
- 1 h 34 m
- 2020
- R
- IFC Films
- 1 h 34 m
Swallow
65
6.4
Where to Watch
Summary On the surface, Hunter (Haley Bennett) appears to have it all. A newly pregnant housewife, she seems content to spend her time tending to an immaculate home and doting on her Ken-doll husband, Richie (Austin Stowell). However, as the pressure to meet her controlling in-laws and husband's rigid expectations mounts, cracks begin to appear ...
Directed By: Carlo Mirabella-Davis
Written By: Carlo Mirabella-Davis
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 22 Critic Reviews
65
73% Positive
16 Reviews
16 Reviews
18% Mixed
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
9% Negative
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 22 Critic Reviews
65
73% Positive
16 Reviews
16 Reviews
18% Mixed
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
9% Negative
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
A staggering accomplishment in its storytelling, visuals, and performance.
Denis O’Hare delivers a heart-stopping performance as Hunter’s unlikely father figure, but this is Bennett’s show. She is luminous and her journey from beautiful, broken housewife to clear-headed woman, grabbing handfuls of soil from a parking lot to snack on later, is thrilling. It’s a role you can imagine a young Isabelle Huppert playing, and there’s no higher praise than that.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 53 User Ratings
6.4
57% Positive
30 Ratings
30 Ratings
28% Mixed
15 Ratings
15 Ratings
15% Negative
8 Ratings
8 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 53 User Ratings
6.4
57% Positive
30 Ratings
30 Ratings
28% Mixed
15 Ratings
15 Ratings
15% Negative
8 Ratings
8 Ratings
A serious look into a caged young woman. IMO a perfect film.
Haley Bennett is impeccably absorbing, capturing the giddy highs and heart breaking lows of the human spirit. It's an emotional feast where almost everything happens between the lines.
Beautifully shot with outstanding sound design, Swallow guides us to a deeper empathy for the weight of forced subservience and the isolation that inherently surrounds it.
On metaphorical level, Swallow also explores the things we all do to deal with past and present trauma, and the forces that make those actions so compulsory.
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This was so good, like a modern take on Rosemary's Baby, Haley Bennett gave a wonderful performance, in Hardcore Henry she was excellent, that is a hard movie to stand out in. Here as well she became the role in a very strong way. The photography was beautiful, reminiscent of my favorite guy Chung Hoon Chung (Stoker), lots of primary colors and contrasts, natural greens and such. The camera never moves, giving a portrait feel, felt like Tokyo Story kind of, the camera never moved in that whole movie. A very well done movie, claustrophobic and somehow beautiful for every frame.
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It’s a film with women in mind, and one that does not judge their choices when it comes to the health of their own bodies and their own minds.
There’s a touch of “The Invisible Man” to this unsettling story of the misery of being married to a cruel control freak. But “Swallow,” for all its People Magazine psychoanalysis, is harrowing in different ways and gripping in its myopia. All Hunter has is this mania for “control” of one thing in her life — what she puts in her mouth. All we have is worry over her mental health, and discomfort in confronting it.
While "The Invisible Man" was built around its clever set pieces rather than its characters, Swallow is led by its protagonist’s mental and emotional state. It takes place in a landscape that’s largely internal — but that’s territory that can be just as filled with darkness and dread as a forbidding mansion.
Given how nauseating it is to watch Hunter perform increasingly perilous acts of self-harm in her prison of a mansion, neither the payoff nor the psychology behind her actions makes Swallow an illuminating enough addition to the woman-on-the-verge-of-a-nervous-breakdown genre.
The idea is cartoonish in its essence but the pic is shot and played with such straight-faced realism that Swallow becomes utterly ridiculous.
About so much more than domestic ennui. If youve ever felt unwanted even by yourself, this film is for you.
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This film was kind of an irregular stuff. A mixture that never settles completely.
Swallows is a story about trauma. A psychological disorder, feminism, patriarchy and empowerment.
Swallow is a suggestive tale and an interesting critique of the social facade in which some women can be trapped and the social interactions that puts them there.
Swallows is Haley Bennett's show and she does a splendid job, however the director forgets about the others and frankly the people around her never stop looking like simple cartoons and that baffled me, especially because the film fails to establish the necessary strength to highlight the complexities of its themes.
It plays safe for the most part and that was a bit disappointing.
However, it's still an intriguing experience, especially since it doesn't provide clear answers and even when a film fails to be notable, it's always respectable that it doesn't try to give you everything so easily.
I only would've liked the story to be more crude, because if you're already at the doors of that threshold, then dare to cross it.
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(Mauro Lanari)
Do they intend to make a movie for every DSM psychopathology? In this case, the director chooses the picacism of an ex-saleswoman who swallows the bitter pills of her previous trauma and her marriage with a husband of superior socio-economic background. The evergreen "This Is the Day" (1983) by "The The" in the soundtrack would have deserved a better fate.
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[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]
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Production Company
Charades,
Logical Pictures,
Stand Alone Productions,
Syncopated Films,
The Population
Release Date Mar 6, 2020
Duration 1 h 34 m
Rating R
Tagline Open Up.
Awards
Brooklyn Horror Film Festival
• 4 Wins & 4 Nominations
Fantasia Film Festival
• 2 Wins & 3 Nominations
Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival
• 2 Wins & 3 Nominations
