After performing well with viewers and critics at the Tribeca Film Festival 2021, Samantha Aldana’s Shapeless is heading to theaters on Feb. 10. The film features co-writer Kelly Murtagh in the lead role as Ivy, a singer who struggles to fit in while hiding her eating disorder from everyone around her. You can catch a sneak peek at what life for Ivy is like as she suffers through what should be a fun night at the bar with friends in our exclusive clip below.

Shapeless follows Ivy, a struggling singer stuck performing in dive bars, who dreams of performing in higher-end music clubs. Set in the dark kaleidoscope music-world of New Orleans, Ivy is haunted by untreated bulimia which twists her form into a hideous monster. The only way to stop her grotesque transformation from taking over - is to use her eating disorder.

Ivy is stuck in an endless cycle of binging and purging as she withdraws deeper into her own deformed psyche. She struggles to maintain a sense of normalcy as relationships with everyone in her band, her job, and her home quickly unravel as she desperately hides her bulimia and her even darker secret – she’s a monster. As she descends even deeper into the illness that controls her body and mind, her voice disturbingly deteriorates. When her big break finally comes, she is forced to face her addiction and the monsters that come with it, or risk losing everything.

Shapeless Is Inspired By Its Lead Star’s Real-Life Struggles

     XYZ Films

“When Kelly Murtagh came to me to direct a film based on her struggle with an eating disorder, I was inspired by her courage,” says the film’s director, Samantha Aldana. “I spent the following year absorbed in research, working to gain a deeper understanding of the complexities of these illnesses. As I became immersed in this world, I saw the opportunity to approach this subject in a new way.

Aldana adds, “I wanted to tell a haunted story about a woman fighting her eating disorder, and I wanted to focus on a portion of her life when she is losing that battle. I wanted to explore the mind of a character that was filled with horror and fantasy by making a horrific fantasy film. In Shapeless, we set out to explore layers beyond what is often shown on screen. This is not about the character getting ‘fixed.’ This is about a woman relapsing into an illness she is no longer able to hide, and the audience intimately shares her reality as she deals with this life-threatening addiction.”

“In New Orleans, with our team of brilliant artists and collaborators, we set out to create a world that represented this reality,” the filmmaker explains. “Every element of the film reflects the aching path of the character’s deterioration. We discovered unique ways to show what it feels like to be addicted to food, to explain what it’s like to see your body in ways no one else does, and to explore the many lies self-loathing tells you. I hope the dynamic representations in Shapeless will provide people struggling with eating disorders a different portrayal of their experiences, and I hope that by using a more raw and personal approach, some audiences may find new empathy and understanding.”

Shapeless is directed by Samantha Aldana and written by Kelly Murtagh and Bryce Parsons-Twesten. The film stars Murtagh, Bobby Gilchrist, Jamie Neumann, Marco Dapper, Erika Ashley, Gralen Bryant Banks, and Zardis Nichol. Murtagh and Gilchrist also produced with Lizzie Guitreau, William Ramsey, R. Todd Campbell, and Brian C. Miller Richard.

Shapeless will be released in theaters on Feb. 10, 2022. After you check out our clip above, you can watch the full trailer for the film below, courtesy of XYZ Films.