Last night, Lisa and I were looking for something to watch.  She told me that if I let her pick the movie, then she would let me write the review.  I’m not really sure that I got the better end of the deal but I still agreed.  We ended up watching For The Love Of Nancy, a made for television movie about a girl with an eating disorder.

Nancy (Tracey Gold) is looking forward to going to college.  Everyone comments on how thin she is but no one ever seems to notice that she hardly ever eats.  That’s because she’s hiding her food underneath her bed and throwing it out whenever she gets a chance.  Nancy is anorexic but her mother (Jill Clayburgh) and her father (William Devane) are too caught up in their own lives to notice.  Even when a friend tells Nancy’s mother that Nancy is showing all the signs of being anorexic, her mother refuses to believe it.  Eventually, things get so bad that her parents have no choice but to accept that Nancy needs help.  Nancy is checked into a clinic and put on a feeding tube but even then, she still tries to get away without eating.  When Nancy is told that she’s gained 6 pounds, she freaks out.

I’m pretty sure that I saw this movie in a health class when I was younger.  I remember it freaked me out when Nancy tore a hole in a wall just so she could have a new place to hide food.  Tracey Gold also struggled with anorexia and was in recovery when she filmed this movie.  At the start of the film, there are a few scenes where she is so thin that it’s scary.  The movie really got to me when i saw it in class and it still got to me watching it today.  One thing I liked about the movie was that it was pretty realistic when it showed how other people reacted to Nancy’s eating disorder.  Her parents started off in denial, went to panic, and eventually got angry and frustrated that Nancy couldn’t just magically get better.  Nobody was portrayed as being perfect.  I felt so bad for Nancy, who didn’t want to hurt anyone but who also couldn’t defeat her eating disorder alone.

This was a good movie but it was depressing.  Tomorrow night, I’m picking the movie!