From Gus Van Sant’s haunting 2003 film Elephant to Vladimir Nabokov’s eternally controversial 1955 novel Lolita, the media has grappled with the dark undercurrents in our society and the education system.  At a time when contemporary narratives meditating on these uncomfortable truths are once again coming to the forefront of pop culture, award-winning director Jessica Hausner’s newest film, Club Zero, is stomach-churning in more ways than one. Taking on heavy-hitting subjects like power dynamics, unchecked authority, psychological manipulation, and the alarming rise of eating disorders in early adolescence, this is a club you may not want to join, but it’s crucial that you at least know of its existence.

A new teacher has arrived at a prestigious boarding school in an unnamed city (I can only assume it is Western Europe, seeing that the film is a production of six countries, five of which are in that region). The enigmatic Miss Novak (Mia Wasikowska, Blackbird) is a nutritionist hired by a board of parents to teach the children about ‘conscious eating.’ Initially, Miss Novak’s influence appears to be benign. These students don’t suffer fools and aren’t apt to do something just because a teacher tells them to. And yet, there is something about Miss Novak and the way she describes the how, why, what, and when of eating that begins to affect most of them.

Soon, Miss Novak is encouraging students to take ‘conscious eating’ to the next level, which means not eating at all.  She doesn’t consume any food and she is thriving. Could it be that she sustains herself off the boxes of tea she supplies to them and keeps well stocked in her room? Or is there more to her methods? As further revelations emerge about her troubling instructional techniques, she draws a tight-knit group of pupils into her destructive web. As the students get closer to joining the mysterious Club Zero, they are increasingly entangled in the pressures of body image and acceptance by their peers and their new mentor, potentially leading to a far more disturbing finality of considerable weight.

Unfolding with a sense of impending doom that gradually gets more disturbing the deeper the students (and some teachers/parents) fall under Miss Novak’s cult-like tutelage, the journey toward the ominous Club Zero becomes more than simply a sinister goal. It is the toll paid by anyone who can’t extricate themselves from the mesmerizing beacon of belief in a lie. The audience is then a bystander to an unpreventable tragedy, a mission set to collide with what is inevitable.

Without shying away from horrific depictions of the effects of disordered eating on a young body and psyche, Club Zero fearlessly takes on these intense themes without being gratuitous. With a fair warning, I will say that those who have experienced disordered eating may still find these scenes to be too raw and startling to take in without enough preparation. Those with a weak disposition should also be aware of a truly vicious scene in which an actor vomits onscreen and then consumes it again. While extreme, it demonstrates a commitment to their belief, showing how deep Miss Novak’s guidance has reached.

Hausner and her co-screenwriter Géraldine Bajard (the two also collaborated on the unsettling 2019 Cannes film Little Joe) reserve judgment not for the teens or Miss Novak but the parents and other teachers who turn a blind eye and covered ear to the problem that seems clear from the beginning. In much the same way the infamous German director Michael Haneke or, to a lesser extent, Italian giallo-master Dario Argento enjoys punishing the middle class, Hausner is decidedly pointed in her rebuke of lousy parenting and teaching.

Ever since her breakout roles in Alice in Wonderland and Jane Eyre, Wasikowska has carefully chosen her characters, and Club Zero’s Miss Novak is no different. We gradually see the torture present behind Miss Novak’s eyes, hinting at a pain that drives her that remains a mystery to us. Part of that exists in the screenplay, but Wasikowska brings it to life.  Dressed in Tanja Hausner’s (Goodnight Mommy) color-blocked costumes that stand in stark contrast with the sets and production design by Beck Rainford, Wasikowska moves like a predator, and when she reaches her prey, you can’t help but get the shivers.

Playing a troubled boy with diabetes struggling with his identity and perceived rejection by his parents, Luke Ford is tasked with perhaps the most undercurrent of emotions to play in Club Zero, and he does it beautifully.  There’s an abundance of sadness in his eyes, and even without dialogue, his performance would have been in tip-top shape. Commendable work is also present from Ksenia Devriendt as that fiercely committed actor I mentioned above, as well as Elsa Zylberstein (Waiting for Anya), playing her mother dealing with similar disordered eating that finds it at first easier to commiserate with her daughter over their shared distaste for food than recognizing the growing problem. Amanda Lawrence (Christopher Robin) is ferociously good as a concerned single mother of a student, the only parent who appears to have a vested interest in the long-term safety of her only child.

While not an easy film to stomach, literally and figuratively, Club Zero is a bold, riveting confrontation of a dire crisis gaining steam. Often harrowing but thought-provoking, it serves advocacy by delivering its message brutally and with a vital reckoning. Its commentary isn’t shrouded in metaphor or generalized, so we don’t know who Hausner thinks is the problem. Though we may be left with questions about the implications of giving our devotion so unquestioningly to those in authority, that veil of haunting allure has been pulled back forever.

If you or someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder, you don’t have to struggle alone! Help is available, and recovery is possible.

Please reach out:
Call the therapist-staffed helpline: at 866-662-1235⁠, visit http://allianceforeatingdisorders.com, or text: “ALLIANCE” to 741741.