Review of Fat Girl (2001) by Rodney S — 29 Apr 2010

Grade: B+.

*some spoilers, but I keep the big ones out*.

Fat girl is quite a marvellous film. Its power sneaks up on you, and it has you thinking about it afterwards. It's not a film that encourages silence; it's provocative, realistic, and pushes moral limits. This is a film by French filmmaker Catherine Breillat who is writing and directing; it won the French Culture Award at the Cannes Film Festival.

The film revolves basically solely around two sisters; one is 15, slim, and sexy. The other sister (the title role) is 13 and fat, with low self-esteem. They and their parents are vacationing; the parents are for the most part in the background, as the film follows the two girls roaming around town, with Elena (the thin one) basically dragging her fat sister around while she makes out with an Italian guy she is supposedly falling in love with. This is psychologically damaging on Anais (the fat one) who fears no one will love her, and that her sister will never know loves true worth by giving it away arbitrarily. The film evokes the complex love/hate relationship between the sisters with great poignancy and emotion.

A large chunk of the plot involves the Italian guy Fernando attempting to ease Elena into the idea of losing her virginity; the film has an extremely long, almost 20 minute scene in which the two lie in bed and discuss it, while her sister Anais sleeps in another bed beside them; this gives you a sense of Elena's complete naivety and utter lack of regard for her sisters emotions before her own, and that notion is throughout the film. Anais is practically used to all the abuse she endures. Our protagonist has many similarities to Gabourey Sidibe's character in Precious, without the overt extremities of Precious. Precious is a great film in its own right.

The parents are basically oblivious to the reality of their daughters' issues, and too worried about themselves to really even take a second glance. That's pretty much all there is to say about them. The mother is played by an actress I really like named Arsinee Khanjian, whom you may recognize from many films of Canadian director Atom Egoyan.

There could be various reasons why the sisters behave the way they do towards one another, and why they make each other, and themselves suffer needlessly. It's a complex thing to diagnose, as the life of naive 15 year olds can be. They truly love each other in the end, no matter how much they may torment each other psychologically, and they understand the need to ultimately preserve that love in spite of their external differences. The young actresses really shine, notably Anais Reboux as Fat Girl herself; her acting really conveys much of what the dialogue doesn't and she especially carries much of the films weight (no pun intended), which relies so heavily on her character, and her responses to the situations she encounters. The acting of Roxane Mesquida as the older sister is very solid as well, and the Italian guy Fernando is hilarious, perverted, sneaky, and horny; a true student of the incremental art of persuasion in the field of sex.

The film has a shocking twist that had me reeling for a couple minutes, and pondering for a while after. The editing and directing is very fine, and evokes a sense of where things may be going and the natural unfolding of situations in long, extended takes. The average length per shot in this film is very high I presume, but it works because the film is really a contained work, with a solid beginning middle and end, depicting the length of the vacation. The film needs all of the presented elements to make sense of everything when the end arrives, and its pace feels nice and relaxed, like it isn't worried about where it's going, but confident that it will arrive there with a good tale told.

The ending truly made me feel the preceding material was somewhat arbitrary and pointless, built up to a zero sum game in which everything just ends; but nothing will ever be the same. That may not make sense but see the film and it may make (a bit) more. Regardless, it was thought provoking, and makes me think about the torment we rack ourselves with, when we should just simply live, and embrace our inherent flaws; that's how the film made me feel, one day after seeing it. It's a very good one.

I'm adding Fat Girl as number 10 to my Favourite films of 2001 list, bumping Amelie to the Honourable Mentions. I'm also adding it to my 100 Favourites of the decade list.