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Thin | DVD

Starring: Brittany Robinson, Alisa Williams (II), Polly Williams (III), Shelly Guillory
Directed By: Lauren Greenfield

List Price:

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Price:

$15.99

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Available:

Usually ships in 24 hours

Binding:

DVD

Rating:

Run Time:

102 minutes

Format:

Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC

Studio:

Hbo Home Video

Number of Discs:

Aspect Ratio:

1.33:1

Release Date:

November 21, 2006

Sales Rank:

12,041th

EDITORIAL REVIEWS

Description
The HBO Documentary film Thin takes us inside the walls of Renfrew Center, a residential facility for the treatment of women with eating disorders, closely following four young women (ages 15 - 30) who have spent their lives starving themselves?often to the verge of death. The film deftly chronicles the pervasiveness of restrictive eating behaviors (most of the women profiled learned dysfunctional eating habits from their mothers while growing up), as well as the failure of our current health-insurance industry to address its clients' needs, while never shifting focus from the women themselves. Director Lauren Greenfield documents with astonishing depth the daily rituals, spontaneous friendships and startling swings between recovery and relapse that make up life at the center. The result is a powerful new insight into one of our society's most insidious open secrets.

Amazon.com
A compelling film that delves into the lives of young women with eating disorders, the HBO documentary Thin offers sobering insight into why anyone would sacrifice her health for the pursuit of unrealistic body perfection. Set in a Florida clinic that specializes in treating patients with bulimia (binge eating followed by self-induced vomiting) and anorexia (consuming barely enough to survive), the film introduces viewers to four women. Shelly, 25, is a psychiatric nurse who weighs 86 pounds. Talking to her therapist, she says, "I used to have a personality." Alisa, 30, is a mother of two small children who joined the Air Force to lose weight. Though she seems to be the perfect patient, it's obvious her eating disorder has taken control of her life. She just wants to be thin, she says, and "if it takes dying to get there, so be it." Polly, 29, checked herself in for treatment after a suicide attempt. The cause? She had allowed herself to eat two pieces of pizza. Brittany, 15, grew up watching her mother--who also has an eating disorder--behave compulsively around food. Once weighing 185 pounds, Brittany dropped to almost half her weight in a year, causing severe liver damage. When her insurance runs out, the teenager has to leave the clinic. The last group meeting she attends with her fellow patients is heartbreaking. As she sobs, it's obvious she'd rather die of starvation than risk being heavy again. Even when a 28-year-old patient tries to convince her that she is young enough to change her life around, Brittany cries that death is a better option than being fat. Filmed in a matter-of-fact manner by director Lauren Greenfield, Thin offers hope, but no happily-ever-after ending for these women. It will be a struggle for them to eat--and not purge--once they leave the clinic. And the documentary leaves viewers hoping the best for these tortured women, but realizing that some of them might not make it. --Jae-Ha Kim

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 37 reviews)

Love it!! by L. Markgraf (Colorado, USA)

5 Stars
October 11, 2009
This has got to be one the best documentary about eating disorders that I have found. It really gives insight into how these kinds of programs work and how the clients deal day to day even in recovery.

really really good by wildcat98 (NY, USA)

5 Stars
July 08, 2009
when i first saw it on tv, i had no idea it was that hard for people. everybody had to get help so they came there and some of the people are still alive. But to lost one of them was very up settung for me. i will never forget her. this is a good movie to know what warining signs look like. get it to learn more about eating probles

Shallow and Conventional by Sarah R. Hoffman (Cornelius, NC USA)

3 Stars
June 02, 2009
I've watched "Thin" three times and I'm still not satisfied. This "documentary" focuses way too much on the superficial drama within the clinic and only reinforces certain stereotypes due to its lack of depth. The eating-disorder itself, with all of its pervasive and sinister, deeply felt psychache is left undisclosed, unexamined. They should re-title this film "Frew Crew" and air it in portions as a soap opera on daytime television, or as an MTV reality show. At least it's amusing. At least it exposes the interior of an inpatient facility - something the public is rarely privileged or cursed enough to see. Given the context of a society that loves to intrude and is greatly amused by the suffering of other human beings it is no wonder that "Thin" is so shallow. So why am I giving it 3 stars? The footage itself is of excellent quality and I easily watched it three times indicating that it has its merits as a form of entertainment.

perfect!!! by Jamie N. Bednark

5 Stars
February 25, 2009
perfect disc, perfect quality, perfect!!! no scratches or anything. it was exactly what i hoped for.

A Hands-Off Non-Judgmental documentary is a wise way to tell this tale by Pristine Angie at www.d332.com (NYC)

5 Stars
January 08, 2009
I look at Greenfield's THIN as an attempt to solve the problem of telling a story around an emotional topic that is bound to get pelted by criticisms from both sides. Inevitably, the film will suffer from criticisms that are bound to the reality of eating disorders, not to how a documentary was put together. I was originally interested in the topic when I started watching, but the craft of storytelling soon took over. It's as if the moviemakers are sleuths who are simultaneously trying to solve the mystery of "why" alongside the mystery of "who." I found the light touch of THIN a necessary approach: it does not try to answer either questions: it allows the camera to roll as tidbits and revelations surface while others stay submerged. An expert moment arrives when the therapist asks Shelly what lurks in the recesses of her past, possibly making her do what she does. She says, "if I'm not telling anyone, why should I tell you?" And our voyeuristic view gets cut into the next segment, deprived of an answer we may unfairly proceed to apply to other cases later on. The use of the blue rolling luggage cage (as each patient leaves the center) is poetically angled for each departing outpatient as well. Some leave pushing a big load, while others leave with nothing but bags they carry by hand. I also appreciated the light use of background music as a way to refrain from playing with a viewer's emotions. I only wished that some of the other members at Renfrew (apart from the main four) were introduced earlier, because by the time situations come to a head, and they speak up, I was left to wonder, "where were these articulate people earlier on?" If you are looking for a documentary that gives you the answers, you won't find it here, but I've always believe that the best documentaries show you the problem, and leave you to seek out the answers.

SIMILAR PRODUCTS

	NOVA: Dying to Be Thin Starring: Susan Sarandon Directed By: Larkin McPhee A 14-year-old looks at her image and says, "I see somebody that is fat and ugly and a disappointment." She is like a growing number of young American girls afflicted with such eating disorders as anorexia nervosa and bulimia. Tormented by an irrational fear of being fat, an estimated eight million young women are torturing themselves—sometimes to death. It’s no wonder eighty percent of women are dissatisfied with their bodies. Driven by the waif-like images flooding the media of...
	Thin by Lauren Greenfield (Author), Joan Jacobs Brumberg (Introduction) Critically acclaimed for Girl Culture and Fast Forward, Lauren Greenfield continues her exploration of contemporary female culture with Thin, a groundbreaking book about eating disorders. Greenfield's photographs are paired with extensive interviews and journal entries from twenty girls and women who are suffering from various afflictions. We meet 15-year-old Brittany, who is convinced that being thin is the only way to gain acceptance among her peers; Alisa, a divorced mother of two whose...
	Perfect Illusions: Eating Disorders and the Family Starring: Lauren Hutton, Enrique Cerna, Marya Hornbacher Directed By: Peggy Case The dramatic experiences of four families whose lives have been impacted by eating disorders. "There will never be a moment in which you are not you. Some may try to hide their existence away, pretending they are someone they're not, but who is this act for? You know the ultimate truth; there is no hiding from yourself. The difficulty of it lies in our societies' ability to create perfect illusions." A young woman named Anna Westin wrote these words in her diary in November 1999,...
	For the Love of Nancy Starring: Tracey Gold, Jill Clayburgh, Cameron Bancroft, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Michael MacRae Directed By: Paul Schneider
	Girl Culture by Lauren Greenfield (Author) Renowned photographer Lauren Greenfield has won acclaim and awards for her studies of youth culture. In Girl Culture, she combines a photojournalist’s sense of story with fine-art composition and color to create an astonishing and intelligent exploration of American girls. Her photographs provide a window into the secret worlds of girls’ social lives and private rituals, the dressing room and locker room, as well as the iconic subcultures of the popular clique: cheerleaders, showgirls,...