Waisted

Meyers’s lackluster latest (after The Widow of Wall Street) concerns what turns out to be an unscrupulous documentary about weight loss, and what two participating women do to avenge themselves. After Alice Thompson’s filmmaker husband, Clancy, admits that her weight has lessened his attraction to her, she agrees to appear in a rival documentarian’s new project involving a weight-loss camp. Makeup artist Daphne also signs up after a lifetime of being harangued by her well-meaning mother. Though the women were enticed by promises of a well-organized wellness center, they’re subjected to verbal cruelty, grueling exercises, and a reliance on amphetamine pills. Alice and Daphne escape the film set and use stolen footage to make their own exposé, but the girl-power ending feels forced. Meyers’s prose is often overwritten: “Machinelike, she scooped out the candy, shoved in the pieces, masticated, and began again, hardly waiting to swallow as her full hand stood ready like an eager soldier, prepared to send the next wave of reinforcements to their deaths.” Some details also require a suspension of disbelief: after a day of hard physical activity, participants have to force themselves to eat their meal of tofu and veggies in a broth. This heavy-handed novel falls short. [em](May) [/em]