Michelle & Melissa Macedo as Penny & Penelope
“THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY OUT OF THIS ROOM: YOU HAVE TO EAT YOUR WAY OUT!”
With fat- loss medication like Mounjaro and Ozempic in the news on a daily basis, Nathan Hertz questions how all those millions of people are coping with them. In ‘THIN-ESTRA’, he opens up a very dark option and takes us on a roller-coaster ride with Penny (the wonderful Michelle Macedo) as her unhealthy obsession with diets linked to her terror of being fat, drives her to risk a life-changing substance. Despite the warning tag that not everyone can cope, Penny plunges in as she struggles to control her despair and she takes us, racing, into her supernatural world.
Terror ends up being the operative word, because Penny’s overwhelming doughnut nightmares lead her into an even grizzlier world than that of being merely fat. As she loses kilos, she finds that that her lost fat is re-constituting itself into a terrifying doppelgänger monster over which she has no control.
The comedy is also gradually taken to new heights as her overwhelming passion for doughnuts dominate her and the horror starts to take over. Hertz makes a comment on how obsessions can be so self-focused that the person can no longer communicate with those around them. Penny is terrified of ending up “ fat and alone” but at the same time is totally oblivious to the effect she has on her love-struck neighbour Josh and his friend Paul, both of whom really fancy her.
Michelle Macedo and her twin sister Melissa are perfect in the roles of Penny and Penelope. The twins have a strong Portuguese connection through their father, who emigrated to the USA from the Portuguese colony of Goa. This also added an Indian influence, both of which come up in their music and many albums with their band MACEDO.
THINESTRA brings up an element of sadness as we inevitably think of the multitude of people with equally debilitating body dysmorphia who are risking their health in the real world. This wonderfully sardonic horror satire might be too close for comfort for many!
THINESTRA is thoroughly entertaining. It plays out over a Christmas period, a time when on every surface there is a copious litany of delicious offerings that Penny fights to avoid. Permanently hungry, she valiantly struggles to keep to her ghastly thin-drinks diet. She drools over the desire to look at least a little like the dazzling model who is advertising a yet more unpleasant looking diet drink called SNOG, with all the connotations that name can awaken. Meanwhile boxes, packed with shiny doughnuts, sit open on tables by the colourful Christmas set. The sound is extremely effective and, as the story itself has depth the film's theme plays out really powerfully as well.
The ‘No Pain No Gain’ motto rings truer than ever, for there is much pain to come. In the ever increasing madness of her new incarnation, Penny can pig-out and indulge, grotesquely and intensely, with the growing horrors that it brings into her life.
THINESTRA is a good outing for debut director Nathan Hertz as he explores his personal take on the ‘Hansel & Gretel’ fairy tale, taking it to a gruesome conclusion. He has been working in film for some time producing and directing shorts, this is his opera prima, and may there be many more from this quirky stable.
THINESTRA (2025) directed by NATHAN HERTZ was at the Raindance Film Festival and has just won the Vortex Award at The Rhode Island International Film Festival. The film will also be screened in the Brigadoon section of the Sitges Film Festival
Writer: Avra Fox-Lerner/ Producers: Alexandra Lubenova / Kelly Parker / Editors: Aashish D’Mello, Joshua Raymond Lee and Zekun Mao/ DOP: Joe Wesley / Sound editor supervisor: RIC Schnupp/ Music: Charlie Laffer & Tom Walley / Executive Producers: Nathan Hertz, Michelle Macedo and Melissa Macedo.
CAST: - Michelle Macedo: Penny / Melissa Macedo: Penelope /Shannon Dang: Chaela /Gavin Stenhouse: Josh /Brian Huskey: Neils /Mary Beth Barone: Mariah/ Annie Ilonzeh: Demetria /Norma Maldonado: Amanda /Jason Perlman: Henry/Alexander Chard: Paul.
