Body of Water

There is a moment of warmth in Body of Water you can’t help but antic­i­pate. A moment of tri­umph. A rebuild­ing of fam­i­ly bonds. A blos­som­ing romance per­haps? It’s unclear where it will come from but sure­ly this is what this film, about a bro­ken anorex­ic woman rebuild­ing her life after spend­ing sev­en months in an insti­tu­tion, is set­ting us up for?

But direc­tor Lucy Bry­don doesn’t sug­ar­coat any­thing. She’s not here to com­fort us or con­vince us that every­thing always works out alright in the end. Rather, this is an unflinch­ing look at eat­ing dis­or­ders, men­tal health and tox­ic fam­i­ly dynamics.

Sian Brooke trans­formed her body to play recov­er­ing anorex­ic Stephanie. She wan­ders weak and with­ered through the film, a tiny brit­tle bird swamped in over­sized grey cot­ton. She returns home to her moth­er (Aman­da Bur­ton) and teenage daugh­ter (Fabi­enne Pioli­ni-Cas­tle), who are both open­ly con­temp­tu­ous towards her. The intense dynam­ic between the three is fas­ci­nat­ing; in any giv­en con­ver­sa­tion all three are simul­ta­ne­ous­ly right­eous, manip­u­la­tive and cru­el. Even at moments of seem­ing redemp­tion, the family’s dys­func­tion­al­i­ty quick­ly takes over.

Per­son­al his­to­ry is only allud­ed to: Stephanie’s career as a war pho­tog­ra­ph­er; the events that led to her insti­tu­tion­al­i­sa­tion; her past indis­cre­tions as a moth­er and daughter.The film nev­er goes into specifics and we are nev­er made to feel she is entire­ly beyond hope. This makes her self-destruc­tive and regres­sive behav­iour all the more painful to watch. Brooke’s per­for­mance is sen­si­tive and com­pelling, por­tray­ing Stephanie with an intri­cate tapes­try of con­tra­dic­tions and complexities.

There are moments of still­ness that show off Brydon’s direc­to­r­i­al skill; sear­ing images of bro­ken peo­ple jux­ta­posed against nat­ur­al beau­ty. The warm, dap­pled sun­light of recov­ery is stark­ly con­trast­ed by the des­o­late greys of the world out­side the ward. There are moments of pitch black humour, too, such as a fam­i­ly argu­ment in front of an unsus­pect­ing swim teacher and an anorex­ic patient scream­ing bloody mur­der at being offered a snack.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, these are few and far between – but just when it’s all start­ing to feel a bit too much, the film heads into an unex­pect­ed and deeply mov­ing final act. Char­ac­ters evolve (or devolve) over the course of a series of beau­ti­ful­ly writ­ten con­fronta­tions, and Bry­don brings things to a bold and uncom­pro­mis­ing conclusion.