A Banquet (Movie Review)
When I heard that Ruth Paxton’s new film A Banquet featured strong women leads, body horror, and touches of eating disorders, I knew it was right up my alley.
I have worked in the field of eating disorders treatment for six years, and in that time, I’ve gotten to know what eating disorders look like, as well as what they don’t. Most horror movies, and media in general, that try to touch on disordered eating often fail to capture the seriousness of the illness, and instead lean on pop-culture understandings of the disease. A Banquet is different in that it really gets it right, and in doing so, delivers a compelling story.
Like a lot of recent arthouse horror pictures, A Banquet begins with a family trauma. High-achieving high school senior Betsey (Jessica Alexander), younger sister Isabelle (Ruby Stokes), and mom Holly (Sienna Guillory) seem to be handling that trauma as best they can, until one day Betsey stops eating.
Betsey’s refusal to eat doesn’t come from a place of body insecurity, but rather from a disgust and repulsion around food. She feels as if she is already “spiritually full.” She believes she’s been chosen to serve a higher purpose - specifically, that she is a vessel of knowledge that “the end” is near.
Whilst most movie viewers would be familiar with more conventionally-understood eating disorders, such as anorexia and bulimia, they may not be as familiar with Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID). ARFID was added to the DSM-V in 2013, and is characterized by a disinterest or even repulsion around food. Sufferers have an incredibly hard time consuming a variety of foods, not because of a disturbance in body image, but because of fear or disgust around food itself and/or the physiological process of eating.
Betsey’s response to her family trauma looks, to me, a lot like ARFID. There are behaviors from both Betsey herself and the characters around her that read as eating disorder hallmarks. She is repulsed by food, and begins to choke when she tries to force herself to eat. She is overstimulated by the sights, sounds, and smells of food being cooked and consumed. Her exasperated mother, Holly, wants to help, but sometimes says the wrong things. She begs Betsey to take “just one bite,” and eventually drags out the scale, worried about her daughter’s health. She checks the bathroom for evidence of use, looks into treatment centers for Betsey, and exhausts her list of specialists. Grandma enters as a figure who understands neither the trauma nor the disorder, and accuses Betsey of faking and attention-seeking. Younger sister Isabelle, both worried for her sister and envious of the attention she’s getting, shoves food in Betsey’s mouth in order to make it all stop. The solution seems so simple, but so unattainably far away.
Despite all of this, Betsey does not seem to want to get help. In her mind, she’s been chosen as a vessel of secret knowledge, and this is her new purpose. This further tracks for eating disorders, which are oftentimes egosyntonic, meaning the sufferer doesn’t necessarily want to give up their illness because it’s serving them in some way. And if this is Betsey’s divine purpose, why would she want to give it up?
A Banquet does an excellent job of showing how devastating an eating disorder can be to an entire family system. Other movies attempt to incorporate eating disorders into their stories, and many of them, inadvertently or otherwise, end up romanticizing the illness. A Banquet does not; Betsey is sick, and gravely so. It should also be noted that she shows significant indications of schizophrenia, another illness that is often misunderstood and misrepresented in media, but presented thoughtfully here. Although I went in trepidatious, as I often do when a movie attempts to explore mental illness, I was pleasantly surprised at how A Banquet succeeded.
We’re in an era of horror where psychological trauma and plot ambiguity reign, and where disturbed female leads experience things that may or may not reflect the reality of the situation around them. A Banquet stands strong among others in this subgenre, like Censor and Saint Maud. The cast is outstanding, the script is great, and much of its overall success is due to the nuanced understanding of the disorders it’s presenting. This is definitely one to see.