Dietland + Review

I love a good show. There are so many different ones from different genres that I have enjoyed watching and I am always on the lookout for more.

A while back I came across the show called, Dietland. This is based off a book of the same name. After watching all of the episodes of the show, I decided to read the book.

For this post, I wanted to talk about Dietland and give my take on it.

The premise of Dietland

Both the book and movie have the main character whose name is Plum Kettle. She is a ghostwriter for a high fashion magazine and works mainly from home or a local coffee shop.

Plum is obese and is considering weight loss surgery. As the show/book go on she meets a group of people that are all about loving and finding power in themselves as women.

There is also a group of women who kidnap and kill men who had been allegedly assaulting women and young girls. Plum eventually gets sucked into this mission, too.

The readers and viewers get to see how she handles things when she delves into both of these worlds.

Dietland topics

There are several topics that Dietland (both the book and movie) touch on. They are as follows:

1. Body image- There is a lot of talk about character’s bodies and how they see themselves because of them.
2. Feminism- Women’s rights are discussed a lot. The two groups that the main character finds herself getting into are based on feminism.
3. Dieting and societal weight loss obsession- Plum’s obesity is focused on a lot. She has done many diets since she was young and still struggles with finding the right diet as an adult.
4. Fat acceptance- Plum tries to accept her body the way it is after a while.
5. Standards of beauty- Dietland goes into what is and is not considered beautiful in our society. It also talks about all the things that women feel they have to go through to look good.
6. Dating/Relationships- Plum tries her hand at dating which ends up being unsuccessful due to a couple of different reasons. It highlights the fact that appearance means so much to some people in terms of getting started with dating even if they are “clicking” personality wise.

There may be other elements in the show and book but the above list includes the main ones.

Differences between the book and show

There are some differences that you will find if you read the book and watch the show. Without giving too much away, they are as follows:

1. Character addition- A couple characters were added to the show that were not in the book.
2. Time spent on some characters/events- A couple of the characters/events played bigger roles on the show than the book and vice versa.
3. Character descriptions- A couple of the character’s appearances, race and sex were changed on the show.

My review of Dietland

I first read about Dietland (the show) in Time Magazine just before it was to start airing. It sounded really interesting and I was excited about it.

I absolutely loved the first episodes and was eager to watch all of the others ones whenever they were available on Amazon Prime Video. Since I like to make lists, here is a list of some specific things I loved about it:

1. Joy Nash, the actress that plays Plum (main character)- She is such a wonderful actress! I also think she is really pretty.
2. Plum (main character)- I find her cool and smart. I would love to be a writer like her so I could work from anywhere. Definitely not doing the same kind of writing though.
3. The underground beauty “closet”- I do not want to give too much away but I found it to be pretty cool.
4. The radical feminist group story line- The drama and mysteriousness of the group of women killing specific men brought a layer of tension to the story. This made it even more interesting because I was curious to know what was happening.
5. Weight loss program back story- There is a fictional weight loss program (supposed to be like WW, I think) that the main character was on. It was interesting to hear the story (fake story that is) behind it.
6. Female empowerment- I loved the scenes that were about finding strength within.
7. Special effects- The show included some animation. I found that it further helped to move the story along in a unique way.

There are even more things that I loved about the show but I will stop here.

As far as the book goes, I did not enjoy it as much as the show. The book’s story was more all over the place, dry and the main character was not as likeable as she seems in the show version.

Give Dietland a try!

The show version of Dietland (available on Hulu and Amazon Prime Video) was great in my opinion with its engrossing story and strong acting performances. I would highly recommend this. It can be a wonderful thing to watch as part of a self-care routine!

Have you read or watched Dietland? If so, what did you think about it?

Thanks for reading!

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