If you have HBO, or if you know a friend who does, do yourself a favor and watch the television premiere of THIN at 9pm tonight. I saw it this past spring at The Independent Film Festival of Boston, where it deservedly took home the documentary Grand Jury Prize, and where it proceeded to knead my stomach into mush and make me cry like a sad little child. Directed by photographer Lauren Greenfield and shot/co-produced by documentarian Amanda Micheli, THIN takes a directly humanistic approach to its material, resulting in one of the most emotionally devastating films I've seen in a very long time.

The film is set inside the walls of an eating disorder clinic in Florida, where the traumatized, skeletal patients are struggling to conquer their various issues (bulemia, anorexia, etc.). To look into the hollow, terrified eyes of these women is to look into the depths of the illness itself, and it is a very scary sight to behold.