Embrace – movie review

Or how I learned to stop worrying and love my body (with apologies to Stanley Kubrick).

When photographer Taryn Brumfitt had her babies she worried about the changes in her body. Brumfitt posted a before and after shot of her body on line, and was surprised at how quickly the images went viral. She also received hundreds of emails and online comments from women talking about the whole issue of body image. This is an issue that affects practically every woman and as Brumfitt points out, nearly 91% of all women hate their bodies. To maintain the perfect body is hard work and requires a lot of sacrifice and obsession with a healthy diet and lifestyle.

Brumfitt’s documentary Embrace aims to inspire women of all ages to embrace their body with all its imperfections rather than buy into the whole obsession with beauty. Ours is a society obsessed with celebrities, and consequently a host of women’s’ magazine perpetuate stereotypes and promote the unrealistic ideal of a perfect figure through photoshopped images. This is, in turn, promoting an unhealthy lifestyle amongst younger woman.

Inspired by the many responses to her online posting and the many questions raised, Brumfitt set off on a long journey to find some answers. It was a long journey that took her around the world to Hollywood, where she met talk show host Ricki Lake, to Berlin where she met actress Nora Tschirner, and to New York where she took part in a photo shoot with noted photographer B Jeffrey Madoff and a bunch of women on different shapes and sizes. One of the strangest characters she encounters though is Harnaam Kaur, a bearded lady who talks of her struggle to find acceptance and to fit in with societal expectations.

Embrace is as much an activist film trying to make a change in our perceptions as it is a documentary, much like Damon Gameau’s That Sugar Film from last year, although not as generally entertaining. This is a film that speaks passionately to female audiences. Brumfitt’s ultimate message is that the fashion industry itself needs to undergo a radical shift in how it addresses issues of beauty.

Embrace is the most successful crowd-funded Australian documentary, and, despite its limited cinema release, will undoubtedly reach and inspire its target audience.

Director: Taryn Brumfitt
Rating: MA15+
Release Date: 4 August 2016

Greg KIng