Film

Healing

Name: Healing
Genre: Drama
Released: 2021
Cast: Monauar Lutfi, Carter Rockwood, Barbara Saba

Other titles called Healing: the 2014 film.

Coming-of-age

A 15-minute short film told from a younger brother's perspective as his teenage sister battles an eating disorder. Intimate and unflinching, it captures the collateral damage of addiction through a child's helpless love. Essential viewing for anyone touched by disordered eating, or anyone who loves someone struggling.

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you want a short, quiet portrait of a family working around an illness, where the small observations of a younger sibling carry more weight than any big speech.

Skip it if you need a fuller story with plenty of plot, since at fifteen minutes this fragment leaves much of its emotional ground unexplored.

What it asks of you: Fifteen minutes, mostly held close on a child's face and in hushed rooms, so it moves slowly and stays quiet, rewarding patience more than plot-watching.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

My Mad Fat Diary2013

Follows Rae as she navigates life with depression and body image issues. Funny, brutal, and genuinely moving—it treats mental illness as the lived experience it is, not a moral failing or inspiration porn.

But Some episodes feel dated; the tone swings wildly between comedy and darkness, which can feel uneven if you're looking for consistency.

Minari2021

A family drama about immigration, ambition, and sacrifice told partly through a child's eyes. Like 'Healing,' it finds the quiet ache in love—what we endure for each other, what we ask of those we can't protect.

But Deliberately paced and understated. If you need catharsis or a clear resolution, this offers observation instead.

The Florida Project2017

Seen through a child's wonder, it's about poverty, precarity, and what childhood means when survival is the story. Heartbreaking without ever pitying its characters.

But The handheld camera work is intentionally rough; the pacing is slow and the ending offers no easy comfort.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Healing

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Farewell2019

Both films centre a witness to another's struggle—someone loving from the outside, unable to fix it, trying to understand. The power lies in what the watching person learns about themselves.

A woman returns to China to say goodbye to her grandmother, who doesn't know she's dying. About family obligation, cultural displacement, and the lies we tell in the name of love. Funny, tragic, and structurally brilliant.

But The grief is muted and indirect; if you expect a Western emotional arc, this withholds it. Some find the tone frustratingly ambiguous.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower2012

A teenager processing trauma through friendship and art. It doesn't solve mental illness but honours the confusion, shame, and gradual unfurling that recovery involves.

But Can feel somewhat precious in its aesthetics; some find its treatment of trauma a bit too neat for a film made thirteen years ago.

Never Rarely Sometimes Always2020

Quiet, observational cinema about a young woman's bodily autonomy and survival. It trusts you to feel; it never explains what you should think.

But Deliberately paced to feel like real time. There is no dramatic confrontation, just the weight of waiting and endurance.

It's Kind of a Funny Story2010

A teenager checks himself into a psychiatric hospital. It's funny because depression and recovery are funny sometimes—not in spite of being serious, but because they are.

But Tonal whiplash; it softens the harder realities of mental illness with music and montage, which some find dishonest.

Thirteen2003

Unflinching portrait of adolescence spiralling into self-destruction. Raw and difficult, it shows how quickly love and oversight fail to protect you from yourself.

But Genuinely harrowing and sometimes exploitative in its imagery. Not cathartic—it's a film about pain that doesn't resolve it.

The Fits2016

A girl in a dance community experiences a strange contagion of illness. Surreal and atmospheric, it captures the feeling of being trapped in your own body.

But Deliberately cryptic and metaphorical. If you want explanation or diagnosis, you won't find it.

Moonlight2016

Three chapters of a young man's life, each its own story. A masterpiece about identity, desire, and what it costs to survive and become yourself.

But Slow and elliptical; it withholds information and emotional catharsis in favour of atmosphere and implication.

Eighth Grade2018

Like 'Healing,' it's interested in the specific pain of adolescence—not as metaphor or coming-of-age narrative, but as acute, lived experience with no obvious solution.

A documentary-realist portrait of a thirteen-year-old girl navigating social anxiety, desire, and the relentless performance of adolescence. Excruciatingly real without a trace of sentimentality.

But Many find it almost unwatchably uncomfortable; there's no narrator distance, no safety, just the dread of being young in public.

A Prayer Before Dawn2018

The body as the site of both damage and healing. Like 'Healing,' it doesn't sentimentalise recovery or suggest it's linear—it shows the daily fight to reclaim yourself from something that consumed you.

An Englishman in a Bangkok prison becomes a Muay Thai boxer. Based on a true story, it's about physical transformation, discipline, and survival. Brutal and gorgeous.

But Extremely violent and visceral; the prison conditions are real and difficult to watch. It's not a redemption narrative dressed up—it's raw and sometimes ugly.