I must say that I don't really like modern movies about anorexia, or books either for that matter. I grew up in the 90's, and I find that movies and books about the subject had more of a soul back in the 1970's-1990's.The more modern works come off as shallow, superficial, and heartless to me.When I was about 19 in 1999, I started going on pro-Ana sites, so they are certainly nothing new.I felt like I never got to know Hannah, at least not well enough to truly care about her. Her desire to be thin didn't seem very deep to me, so I didn't appreciate it.When I was striving to be thin, it wasn't about control, I just hated being fat. I appreciate and sympathize more with those who delve into the lifestyle primarily because they hate being fat. The people who are just control freaks do nothing for me.It's always annoying when the female in these types of movies isn't even close to being fat. Laura Wiggins is only 5'1", and Hannah weighed 128 pounds. I don't think Laura Wiggins weighs that much because she still looked rather slim for being so short.I found it unbelievable that Hannah couldn't fit a size 6 pair of shorts. She couldn't even get the things up past her knees. Clearly this was all just for show, because the shorts were probably like a double zero or something.There were things that didn't make sense. How did Hannah find that one girl she was chatting with online? It seems unlikely that she would just happen to live nearby unless it was a local site.

Lifetime's latest film, Starving In Suburbia, aired last Saturday and was very good to me. Laura Wiggins (who has already starred in 2 other Lifetime movies, "Girl, Positive" and "The Cheating Pact") did very well in this movie as the insecure teen dancer who turns to anorexia to control her weight. Callie Thorne also does well in the role of the concerned mother trying to help her daughter. The premise of the movie is that teen dancer Hannah (Wiggins) is shown a Thinspiration website by a fellow dancer friend, which is a community of people who treat anorexia as a way of life and treat the act of being skinny like a religion. The scenes where Hannah "chats" with ButterflyAna seem a little unrealistic in the way they discuss their intentions, but since I haven't met anyone with anorexia, I might not know how seriously they take weight loss.I also applaud the movie's ending, which shows Hannah's wrestler brother, Leo (Brendan Meyer) is revealed to be anorexic after passing out during a match, being hospitalized, and dies. He is also revealed to be a person that tried to warn Hannah early on that ButterlyAna was a bad influence on her. That was a really nice twist, even though I dislike the father's reaction to the revelation ("He's a boy! He's an athlete!" Seriously? Are people really still that naive?) Now that I've gotten my praise out of the way, here's some negatives about the movie: 1. The title. I don't feel "Starving In Suburbia" is a good title for it. The original title "Thinspiration" was a better title. 2. The sub-plot involving Hannah and her friend Kayden's boyfriend was pretty unnecessary and could have been cut from the movie entirely. It was dug into for about 2 minutes and was then completely abandoned. 3. In the end, Hannah goes to see ButterflyAna (Izabella Miko) at her house and confronts her about causing her brother's death. How did Hannah find her? I don't think she would've posted her address on the website, and it seems way too convenient that she's within driving distance of Hannah's house. 4. Hannah's confrontation with ButterflyAna felt way too short and kinda shoe-horned in. It should have been at least a few minutes longer. But nevertheless, this movie was very good and one of Lifetime's best.

This is a theme that women in a society that fixates on being thin and beautiful as a standard of beauty are all that matters, and anything to obtain that perfection is necessary. Having survived both anorexia and bulimia, I related to the characters need and eventual surrender to the voices haunting her inside her head, whether real or imagined. I was also surprised to find hundreds of these websites, active encouraging the desire to starve, to give tips on wasting away as a show of solidarity in a club that is teetering on the destruction of your body, and more importantly your soul. The acting is superb, and the theme is one that needs to be heard. Excellent through and through.

Props to Lifetime for trying to put a new spin on a movie about eating disorders. The usual suspects don't drive our pretty protagonist to starvation. Instead, it's a website -- more specifically, a woman named "Ana" who runs a website encouraging people to stop eating.So the sports/dance/gymnastics instructor is off the hook this time. (Our protagonist is a dancer, but her dance instructor -- and a fellow dancer -- are actually quiet heroes.)Just when you think you've found a Lifetime movie without a bad man, well, you see that you haven't. And that's one of the surprises. We see glimpses of Bad Daddy in the first hour and 15 minutes, but it isn't until almost the very end when we realize he's set his daughter -- and his son -- up for eating disorder disaster. Plot twist! The brother ends up in the morgue in the end. And his death is just what the protagonist needs to turn it all around -- and to confront "Ana."It this stilted final scene, protagonist finds "Ana" in a junkie backyard (think Jaycee Duggard's prison) and asks "Ana" to take down the website because it killed her brother, who was an "Ana" follower first. Turns out "Ana," short for anorexia, is really just a sad sack, and our protagonist understands this in the end, telling her as much in a really schmaltzy, unrealistic scene. ("Ana" runs a website with tons of followers, yet lives in a backyard, which could be anywhere in the world but actually turns out to be within walking distance of the protagonist's home. What?)Back to the bad man. Dad realizes too late what he's done to his son (and daughter). Mom sees what Dad has been doing, too, with all his expectations and "you can't eat Jello after dinner because you have a wrestling match tomorrow," but Dad is apparently absolved at son's death bed with four little words: "Let's not fight anymore."(Dad also doesn't want to fork over the cash to put daughter into an eating disorder clinic, so they don't.)I think I see what Lifetime was going for -- a new take on an old problem, a plot twist, a tragedy, a rebirth -- but I think they succeeded by about 30 percent. I found it forced, unrealistic and impossible to connect emotionally to said tragedy. Hence the three out of 10.