Shapeless is an observational mood piece that uses horror aesthetics to explore body dysmorphia, plunging us into the depths of a young woman struggling with an eating disorder, with a camera that rarely captures her face head on. Her image is always distorted, or reflected through mirrors, creating a sense of isolation as we watch someone fall deeper into the depths of despair. There comes a point in Shapeless where the ending begins to take shape, and you realize that there is no light at the end of the tunnel. It feels oppressive in its observationally cold atmosphere, leading us down a rabbit hole that there is no escape from, treating the main character like a lab subject whom we are observing in a glass room. Body dysmorphia is filtered through the lens of a young woman struggling with bulimia, melding grotesque imagery with a vulnerable central performance, to create a creeping surrealist nightmare that traps us in its spell for 90 minutes.
Shapeless is Samantha Aldana’s directorial debut, closely collaborating with writer, producer, and star Kelly Murtagh, who based the character on her own experiences with eating disorders and body dysmorphia. Aldana and Murtagh create an evocative film infused with the authenticity of a lived experience. Shapeless is a tough watch, and can be triggering for those who struggle with similar issues, but it also works the way art should work, using its canvas to paint a personal reflection of the artist.
Ivy (Murtagh) bounces around bars and lounges in New Orleans as a lounge singer, and works at a dry cleaner’s during the day. In private, however, she suffers from bulimia. When Ivy goes on these binge eating tyrades, the way Aldana visualizes Ivy’s view of herself is using her body as a slab of marble that she can chisel a monster out of. There is a moment in the movie at a bar, where Ivy is watching the way everyone else is eating, and then she looks up and sees herself in the mirror and her mouth is in the wrong place. It is plastered to the side of her cheek, distorting her entire face. It’s a quick little shot in the mirror, but us noticing that something looks wrong in that mirror creates this sense of unnerving dread that carries through the rest of the picture. In another moment, we could see the flesh rotting on her arm, and she picks away at it and digs under her skin to pull out a ticket stub. This body horror isn’t presented as a mechanism to scare an audience. It is a visual reflection of the way Ivy views her own body, and dealing with her eating disorder distorts this view she has of herself.
In public however, when Ivy’s singing on stage or having conversations, it’s easy for her to mask her insecurities, at first. However, the way Aldana uses the camera to accentuate the cracks in her persona, while at the same time capturing everyone around her who doesn’t notice the cracks, is a brilliant way to highlight the isolation that builds throughout the picture. Ivy, in general, is rarely presented through traditional means, meaning that Aldana chooses to either hide Ivy’s face, or creep around corners to create the impression that we are spying on her, or film her reflection in mirrors, which creates this icy aesthetic, keeping Ivy at arm’s length. It feels like at least half of this movie was filmed in mirrors, blending reality with fiction as Aldana blurs the line between Ivy’s reflection and her reality. There are shots that feel like they are reflections using a mirror, but the mirror is in an impossible location, creating dread from these slight mechanisms of creating a surreal reality.
Shapeless is a promising debut for Aldana, but it can also be frustrating because of how isolating it is, keeping the audience at a distance and creating an atmosphere that is strictly observational. This is a movie about the visceral experience of body dysmorphia, using bulimia as the highlighter. However, this movie doesn’t present us with a traditional storytelling structure that would allow us to feel more involved with the telling of this narrative. At no point in this movie does Ivy reach out for help, or reveal her secret to her friends. She doesn’t struggle with trying to get better before falling into old habits. Instead, Ivy starts out in a bad place, and she gets worse. And then the movie ends.
Aldana and Murtagh aren’t interested in telling a traditional kind of story with this. Their goal is to make us understand what it feels like to view our body as something that feels inhuman, and as something that doesn’t make sense to us. It feels like an exposed nerve, and Murtagh gives a performance that reflects that level of vulnerability. Even though it can feel isolating and cold, the overall experience is ultimately rewarding, creating a window into a world that we may not be familiar with. And if we are familiar with it, then maybe being able to recognize these ideas from someone else’s perspective can help this struggle feel more universal, and less isolated to the traps we find inside our own heads.
