Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

LastingAware The greatest movie ever!

Tacticalin An absolute waste of money

Asad Almond A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

martyaxwar To begin with: I love artistic movies. Even slow ones. Subtle ones. So when I say, that this movie was for me painful and boring to watch, it's not at all because I dislike the pace itself. No, this movie was painfully boring because of how DULL it in reality is. I spent my time asking my self what the actual point to this was. The movie lacks any original thought or vision. The romance is dull, boring, poorly presented and over-sexualized. The relationship between the sisters (which is probably supposed to be the main focus of this film) is dull, boring, and forcefully pathological. The characters are incoherent and there is virtually no character development. The movie tries hard to be controversial and provocative, but for me it came out as forced and annoying. The ending just nailed this impression.Not worth seeing. (Who thought that 20 minutes of driving on the highway, with no interesting interactions between the characters at all, would be a good thing to put into a movie? I mean: What the hell?)

Steve Pulaski Anaïs (Anaïs Reboux in her only acting role as of 2013) is the titular character in Catherine Breillat's Fat Girl ("À ma soeur!" being its original French title). A chubby twelve year old girl, who finds herself constantly browbeaten by her fifteen year old sister, Elena (Roxane Mesquida) while they are vacationing with their parents off the coast of France. Elena, unlike her sister, is thin, incredibly gorgeous, and possesses a beautiful body. A topic of discussion between the two young girls as they listlessly walk around the resort is their virginity and their relationships. Elena, while sexually promiscuous, holds the belief that your virginity should be taken by someone you love. Her younger sister, however, believes that you should your first time should happen just to happen and you should just get it over with.While walking, they meet a law student named Fernando (Libero De Rienzo), who immediately finds himself attracted to Elena. Not long after meeting him does Elena invite Fernando up to her room to talk. Fernando believes like Elena does - that sex should be something sacred and special - but he winds up convincing her to partake in anal sex instead, as vaginal sex is something that judges whether or not you still have your virginity.While it is questionable that Fernando actually believes what he is saying, we can see Elena's hesitation during the foreplay and the sex. We are well aware of her beliefs at this point in time, however, we can see that she has a common curiosity about sex so much so that she simply wants to see just how the act is performed and executed.This scene is one lengthy, naturalistic shot Breillat conducts in the room shared by Elena and Anaïs, boldly establishing real-time, mood, and discomfort just by the way the shot is framed, how long it lasts, and how the characters are placed inside the shot. Fernando and Elena are spooning, with Elena's nightgown on and her vagina and pubic hair clearly visible to the audience. Fernando continues to rub her stomach in a way that doesn't change Elena's blank, frustrated, and confused expression. She knows what she's doing is wrong but is overcome by understandable adolescent curiosity. Anaïs is laying in bed several feet away, closing her eyes and pretending her sister's innocence isn't being taken away in front of her.Fat Girl works well because it illustrates the sexual tendencies of the female and a believable sibling rivalry that is captured with surprising purity and tenderness. When Anaïs and Elena fight, it's nothing but believable. When the two talk quietly in bed it is also believable, almost as if they are real-life sisters. This is because Reboux and Mesquida are not only great screen presences but evoke relatable chemistry as young girls. This chemistry is what the entire film rests on, due to the fact that parents' roles are predicated off of disinterest and ignorance, leaving the girls to utilize each other for companionship and advice.It's a tough subject and Breillat doesn't sugarcoat it. Either she lived a grim reality similar to her characters or she has seen friends go through circumstances akin to Anaïs's and Elena's. Or perhaps she has her head inside a teenage girls' head. Perhaps she just has a deep resonance and an awareness to the sexual maturity of adolescent girls. If that's the case, it would be tough to communicate such a resonance, but Breillat finds ways to do so in Fat Girl that make the film an unsettling and often very consuming piece of work.Much has been made about the ending that is admittedly out of nowhere, able to shock the most hardened viewer raw because of its jolting nature, and implied to add ambiguity and an additional layer to the story. After several hours, where it has crossed my mind about every five minutes, I have not made up my mind on it. An amendment to the review will be made if I do. Perhaps it's a rare moment when an instance in a very great film happens that I'll never be able to define. Did I like it? Did I loathe it? Is it out of place? Does it derail the story? No matter the answer to the question, the previous seventy-nine minutes were still disturbing and well worth seeing.Starring: Anaïs Reboux, Roxane Mesquida, Libero De Rienzo, and Arsinée Khanjian. Directed by: Catherine Breillat.

Maxine Powers I wish I could give a good review to this movie, for I had loved such masterpieces by Catherine Breillat as "Romance X", "Anatomy of Hell" and "Blue Beard," but I do not want to be one of those people that once they fall in love with an artist, accept everything by them as genius, as though they can do no wrong. I felt that the movie was trite, fake, overacted, too obvious, and with a ridiculous ending. Now some will talk about symbolic, and metaphorical depth of it, and go on blah blah blah on and on about the themes this film had explored, and use many fancy literally terms, but if I had to describe it in one word, it would be failure.Once again Catherine, investigates the psychology of sibling rivalry. The familiar theme of two sisters, who seemingly love each other, and yet are in turmoil driven by jealousy, and are by circumstances placed into an unseen competition, is the subject of the movie. This time it's a typical French family, on a summer vacation, at a beach town. Elena (Roxanne Mesquida), is a breathtaking 15 year old beauty, (so gorgeous almost makes the movie tolerable), while her sister, Anais (Anais Reboux), is an awkward, antisocial, plump (Fat Girl) 12 year old, who is both jealous and fascinated by her sister, who in turn is thrilled to have an audience for her mischief.The plot unfolds, when a slightly older Italian picks up Elena at a café, and is soon sneaked into her bedroom, where in an absurdly cliché manner, he seduces her to have sex with him. The scenes that were meant to be provocative, felt ridiculous to me, and instead of the thrill of sexual arousal, in certain parts they made me laugh out loud. The utterly banal romance continues, until the parents find out, and are forced to leave the beach house, and that is where an unexpected, and for lack of a better word, stupid ending comes.It's clear what the intention of the movie was, but it was not captured.I really wonder about sibling rivalry. It seems that whoever you are closets to, is the person that will hurt you the most. And though I had grown up without such feelings, (maybe slight competition with my cousins), being the only child. I personally know many people, who are at real war with their brothers and sisters. My mother would be a perfect example, she hasn't spoken to her brother in years. And I see such pattern repeat itself more often than not. Instead of helping, people within the same family, consciously or unconsciously sabotage each other.As I was writing this review I kept thinking about Kane and Allele, and how even The Bible begins with jealousy between brothers. Is this a part of natural evolution, survival of the fittest, a motivation of a sort? Or is it something else?

Galina Catherine Breillat's "Fat Girl" (2001) is an astounding movie that provides uncompromising and unblinking look at the relationship between two teenage sisters, and their first sexual experiences. The older sister, 15 years old Elena, has no problems attracting boys' attention and sexual desire and while on the family vacation, she meets an older, more experienced boy, who will say and promise anything to seduce her. There are two long, thorough and uncomfortable scenes of seducing Elena that take place in the girls' bedroom with the younger sister, 12 years old Anais, the fat girl of the title not quite asleep. Breillat remembers well what the hell it is to be a teenager, to be confused, frustrated, to think low of yourself, to be ready to enter the world of sexual relationships, to be ready for love, for intimate closeness and to pretend that you don't care about them at all. She also looks closely and with none a gram of sentimentality into siblings' and parents –daughters relationship. The scenes of cruelty and contempt the older sister treats the younger one alternate with rare but poignant moments of tenderness and understanding. Breillat takes us to places we don't go often and we don't want to go but they exist. If you've seen Brellat's movies already, you know that her outlook is not particularly happy, optimistic, or sentimental but "Fat Girl" will shock you as very few movies can. Just when you think that the movie is over and despite the disappointments, embarrassing revelations, and shameless manipulations, live goes on and has so much to offer, Breillat presents you with the final scene that is very difficult to watch and impossible to forget. It does not matter really if the final scene actually took place or was just a fantasy, just the dream projected on the screen.