My film idea, Pearly Whites, will be about a woman named Marina and her adult and teenaged self as she struggles with mental illness and bulimia through the decades. It will show her childhood, initial issues, struggles, relapses, and eventual recovery after she finds peace within herself. The film name comes from the fact that consistent throwing up causes tooth erosion, and the physical effects of eating disorders, besides excessive weight loss, are often ignored.
The opening of the movie, what I will be filming, will show her as a teenager on her 16th birthday as she blows the candles out on her cake. Her sister Daria claps, and disorienting shots are used to show her cutting the cake and placing a slice in front of her. She initially tries to dodge eating it, saying that she'll eat later, but her sister insists, so she takes a bite. She says that it's good through her sadness. Some time later at night, when the house is dark and quiet, there are muffled sounds from the bathroom and she is seen throwing up. She wipes her mouth and washes her face, staring at herself in the mirror, before going to her room.
The first part of the movie shows her high school years as she struggles. A big theme within the movie is how underrepresented bulimia is as a disorder and how stigmatized it is, so she rarely opens up about it- and when she does, it's not taken well.
As she grows, the new stresses of adult life make it harder and harder to stop her destructive behaviors, and she loses touch with her sister. The movie reaches the climax when she has to have dental surgery which causes her to reconnect with her sister and they talk about their lives and how they drifted apart. Marina joins a support group, and seeing the people in her life that love her and how everyone in the group shares her struggles, she decides to take the steps to recovery.
The end of the movie shows Marina at the support group, now in her 40s, leading the discussion. She sees a younger girl listening in on the conversation and approaches her, telling her that she also used to have an eating disorder and that things do get better, but the road to recovery is not always easy and she needs others for support. The girl smiles and decides to join the group, and Marina is happy that she was able to help a younger girl even though many of the people in her life failed her.