Review: 'Swallow' is an unsettling, but sumptuous, drama about a young wife breaking free

A young wife nearly loses control before finding herself in “Swallow,” a disturbingly beautiful first feature from writer-director Carlo Mirabella-Davis that has a lot going on beneath its polished surfaces.

Hunter (Haley Bennett) and Richie (Austin Stowell) live what outwardly appears to be a perfect life. He’s wealthy, a director in the business founded by his father (David Rasche), and they have a stunning lakeside house away from the city. Hunter tends this house, but she feels confined by the airless decor. 

After reading a line from a self-help book, a gift from Richie’s mom (Elizabeth Marvel), to do something unexpected, Hunter does that. She swallows a marble and, a couple days later, fishes it out of the toilet when she passes it. This begins a series of experiments, in which she tries to swallow all kinds of things. (We learn along the way that there’s a name for this type of eating disorder: pica.)

Hunter’s penchant for eating safety pins, batteries and other objects gets discovered — around the same time she and Richie learn she’s pregnant. Richie, backed by his parents, exercise more control over Hunter, hiring a muscular live-in nurse, Luay (Laith Nakli), and sending her to a psychiatrist (Zabryna Guevara) to learn what’s going on in her head.

Bennett (“The Girl on the Train”) gives a powerful, contained performance here, as Hunter transforms gradually from suburban captive to the heroine of her own story. This transformation culminates in a tension-filled scene opposite the great character actor Denis O’Hare, the details of which I will leave for you to discover. 

Mirabella-Davis finds beauty in the well-appointed rooms of Hunter and Richie’s house, and in the curious, jagged objects that appear as out of place in those rooms as in Hunter’s stomach. “Swallow” contemplates the order in the chaos of that abrupt juxtaposition, just as it lets Hunter find her own place in a disordered universe.

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‘Swallow’

★★★1/2

Opened March 6 in select cities and on demand; opens Friday, March 13, at the Tower Theatre (Salt Lake City). Rated R for language, some sexuality and disturbing behavior. Running time: 94 minutes.