Guts
2024 · 11m · USA
Directed by Margaux Susi
Tones: contemplative, tender
A woman in recovery from an eating disorder asks an unlikely stranger out to dinner, seeking quiet support for the simple act of eating a meal.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Everyone's tired of the eating disorder origin story; Susi's move to camp inside recovery's unglamorous middle—the dinner invitation, the companion, the fork—is genuinely subversive because it refuses the narrative beats people expect.
The film's restraint sits firmly in a lineage of intimate European character work, where formal precision and emotional economy do the heavy lifting; the editing knows exactly when to linger and when to cut, a discipline that elevates a simple premise into something formally considered.
The casting and performance choices—how the stranger sits, what they don't say, the way Susi frames two people sharing a meal without sentimentality—that's the whole film right there, and it's done with remarkable clarity on a small scale.
Reviews
Surprisingly engaging for something as simple as two people mostly talking at a table.
It picks up where a lot of stories about disordered eating end. Healing should feel good, but sometimes it just feels normal and mundane, and that's also OK.
Festivals
- Sundance Film Festival 2024, Young Cineaste Award
- Palm Springs International ShortFest 2024, Jury Award
- Salute Your Shorts Film Festival 2024