Eat Yourself Slim (2005) User Reviews

I Was Confused

[Theo Robertson · 5/10 · 27 September 2005]

**** SPOILERS ****

I was confused by Jane Coombes black comedy short EAT YOURSELF SLIM . It opens with mortuary attendant Magaret having flashbacks to when she was a winner of beauty contests . I say " flashbacks " because it's very obvious that Magaret won't be winning any beauty contests in the present or future . Thankfully the director makes sure the audience know the contest scenes are set in the past because the winner sashes state the years 1987 and 1988 . what makes it confusing is that the same actress is used in both the scenes and photos which makes it inadvertently appear that the character of Magaret is deluded . Perhaps if two actress were cast as Magaret , one a slim sex goddess for the late 1980s scene and a fat actress for the present day this aspect would have worked much better

As the story progresses it turns out that Magaret is slicing the flesh from corpses , taking the meat home with her and having human flesh at meal time which leads to weight loss . This is something else that puzzled me . Human flesh is very very similar to pork so why would eating pork or humans make someone lose weight ? There's no substance in either reality or myth that cannibalism can be described as a low weight diet

I will be slightly genourous since it's a short film , these things are usually made out of love and not as some type of commercial venture and Jane Coombes thankfully never thinks of making EAT YOURSELF SLIM a gross out comedy and it does feature a witty line where Magaret loses her job and asks her boss that the corpses need her :

" I'm sure they'll survive without you "

An uneven and unsure dark comedy that doesn't really work

[bob the moo · 15 September 2005]

A rather portly worker in a funeral home cuts flesh off the legs of a dead woman to make her fit into her dress. She does this without her boss' knowledge and smuggles the flesh out to dump it; however back at home her dog starts to eat her, giving her the idea of cooking it and doing the same. This change in diet has a remarkable effect on her.

Although it will certainly not to be everybody's taste (sorry) this is a reasonably amusing dark comedy that sees a woman come to cannibalism; all presented as a sort of modern diet video. It lacks logic and doesn't make any real sense but it is still amusing enough to just about be worth a try. The link between the woman losing weight etc and eating human flesh is thin (sorry) at best and it stops the story flowing because the audience have to work out that this is supposedly the case – the film only helps us once by suggesting that the woman is losing her mind. Laughs are not that thick on the ground but it is amusing and different enough to be worth a try, although I suspect many will be left indifferent by it as I was.

The direction is good and has a comic feel to it, but Coombes can make her approach fit with the material on the screen and it gives her film an uneven feel that didn't sit well with me. Overall then, an unusual dark comedy that may appeal to some but generally doesn't work well enough to be worth putting effort in to finding.