Eating

Eating is American independent film at its best. It's one of those eccentric home-grown efforts - Roger and Me, and Sherman's March are others that come to mind - that spring straight from the American vernacular. [29 Mar 1991, p.3]

Eating is probably the best date movie in years. It is replete with food for thought, and its ideas are sure to keep percolating for days. [17 May 1991, p.13]

The movie blends comedy with drama, and if it isn't the best party you'll ever attend, it does at least manage to sustain a party atmosphere. [20 Sep 1991, p.20]

Food assumes near-religious importance in Mr. Jaglom's portrait of needy, anxious women who spend an entire day playing upon one another's insecurities, and waxing rhapsodic about well-remembered culinary thrills.

Unfortunately, EATING lacks a main plot or any truly involving developments, and the film, after a promising beginning, loses steam.

The movie makes its point early and often: That its characters are hung up on food, and eat for unhealthy and obsessive reasons. It's true. We know it's true. We wait in vain for additional insights.

Directed by the touchy-feely Henry Jaglom, this is film as purgative -- a hens' party from hell, gorged on its own self-importance and damned hard to swallow.