Starved

"Failure to thrive" is not a phrase in this doctor's vocabulary. At the age of four, Anne McTiernan is left by her mother at a boarding school. Overcome by sadness from the neglect she experiences there, Anne emotionally and physically starves. A doctor, appalled by her excessive weight loss, forces Anne’s mother to bring her home, but she is still not safe. Set in working-class, Irish-American Boston of the 1950s1960s, Anne transitions from a malnourished state to obesity to obsessive dieting.