‘Club Zero’ Review: Mia Wasikowska Stars in Jessica Hausner’s Audaciously Disturbing Drama About Institutionalized Eating Disorders
variety.comOwen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic Jessica Hausner, the director of the supremely audacious and disturbing eating-disorder thriller “Club Zero” (yes, I used the words “eating disorder” and “thriller” in the same sentence — that’s the kind of boundary-smashing movie this is), has the potential to be an important filmmaker.
Her last movie, “Little Joe” (2019), a sci-fi creep-out about a sinister strain of houseplant, was really a dark-as-midnight parable of the psychotropic-drug era. “Club Zero” won’t be for everyone, but Hausner, channeling some combination of Hitchcock and Cronenberg and “Village of the Damned” and the Todd Haynes of “Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story,” has now made an even more gripping and provocative mind-fuck. “Club Zero” is set at an elite British boarding school, where seven students, in the opening scene, sit around in a circle led by Ms.
Novak (Mia Wasikowska), the school’s new nutrition teacher. Each of the students says something about why he or she wants to eat better — to save the planet, to lose weight or shed body fat, to fight addictive junk-food consumerism.
Ms. Novak, with her slight accent, her dimples and pert hair, and her serene authoritarian manner, is there to save the day.
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