And nowhere is this more obvious than in the erratic behavior of Claudia.
Claudia, a renowned nutritionist, agrees to help Simi lose weight.
Seemingly a magnanimous host, Claudia welcomes Simi with a tight-lipped smile.
Image by Jefferson Chacon
Tensions brew in her isolated home.
Though her previous diet books are bestsellers, she struggles to find a publisher for her new book.
Butthis rejection is more sinister than it first appears.
Family Dinner follows Simi, an overweight and insecure 15-year-old who spends Easter weekend at her aunt Claudia’s farm. Claudia, a renowned nutritionist, agrees to help Simi lose weight. However, the visit turns sinister as Simi endures Claudia’s extreme and abusive diet regimen, which includes starvation. As the holiday progresses, Simi discovers disturbing secrets about her aunt’s methods and the true nature of the family’s dynamic, leading to a horrifying climax.
Cults function through the recruitment of vulnerable populationsand no one is more vulnerable than an insecure teen girl.
Simi herself does not waver in conviction, but Claudia continually doubts her strength to follow through.
Throughout the film, Claudia seemingly gives Simi multiple opportunities to leave.
But these offers are performative.
Each is designed to reel Simi back in by making her feel as though she has something to prove.
Claudia presents Simi with the illusion of choice, but ultimately, the girl has none.
Simi physically declines throughout her week of starvation.
She is visibly exhausted for most of the film.
When Simi complains of trouble sleeping, Claudia dismisses her concerns as her body “burning” fat.
But like many cult members, Claudia does not experience cognitive dissonance at this contradiction in her ideology.
Instead, Simi’s suffering only seems to prove that the “diet” is working.
Additionally, likemany cults, Claudia keeps to a rigid ceremony.
Simi’s stomach gurgles in pain and hunger and the only thing she is allowed to consume is water.
Later, Simi finds the research for Claudia’s new book to be of an occult nature.
And eventually, Simi discovers the Easter Sunday meal she was given contains the body of Filipp.
One does not simply inhabit a fat body, but carries with it the cultural implications of fatness.
if their choice of clothes so happens to fall in an unflattering way.
One might say they “feel” fat after a large meal or lack of exercise.
Grammatically speaking, these statements make no sense.
One would not decry that they “feel” brown-eyed.
Through this, it becomes a visible metaphor for the presumed moral failings of those who inhabit fat bodies.
They are seen as lazy, greedy, and sexually voracious.
And nowhere is this more evident than the double-edged sword of sexuality Simi is perceived through by her relatives.
He rudely pushes her aside and rushes to the mirror.
“You never get picked up, right?
It’s no surprise.”
A failed one, sure, but it is Filipp who brings up the topic.
Simi is just standing there.
The twisted 21st-century fairytale stunned audiences with its gripping visuals.
With an ideal body weight, you’ll have a sexy body."
Claudia treats Simi’s desirability as something that is hidden away by her weight.
Something that needs to be uncovered like fossils beneath the soil.
But as a fat girl, Simi simply cannot win.
Claudia herself sacrifices her own son in her pursuit of “health”.
Simi, inadvertently, sacrifices her innocence.
Starved and ignorant, Simi too devours Filipp.
Her later horror at that discovery will not undo the act.
Family Dinneris currently available to stream on Tubi in the U.S.
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