Now Playing
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

sort by name

sort by score

34 10,000 B.C.
48 21
47 27 Dresses
17 88 Minutes
39 Alvin and the Chipmunks
55 Baby Mama
69 Bank Job, The
52 Be Kind Rewind
42 Bucket List, The
54 Charlie Bartlett
36 College Road Trip
31 Deception
51 Doomsday
41 Drillbit Taylor
29 Fool's Gold
57 Forbidden Kingdom, The
67 Forgetting Sarah Marshall
59 Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour
57 Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
71 Horton Hears a Who!
63 How She Move
78 Iron Man
35 Jumper
81 Juno
56 Leatherheads
41 Mad Money
37 Made of Honor
9 Meet the Spartans
48 National Treasure: Book of Secrets
39 Never Back Down
55 Nim's Island
50 Other Boleyn Girl, The
xx Rogue
44 Ruins, The
47 Semi-Pro
76 Shine a Light
37 Shutter
57 Smart People
37 Speed Racer
62 Spiderwick Chronicles, The
50 Step Up 2 the Streets
61 Stop Loss
55 Street Kings
33 Superhero Movie
92 There Will Be Blood
45 Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns
40 Vantage Point
36 What Happens in Vegas...

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

sort by name

sort by score

97 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
83 Alexandra
43 Anamorph
35 Babysitters, The
32 Backseat
80 Band's Visit, The
62 Battle for Haditha
47 Bella
63 Blind Mountain
71 Blindsight
47 Boarding Gate
63 Body of War
58 Bra Boys
70 Caramel
54 Cashback
44 Chaos Theory
32 Chapter 27
69 Chicago 10
82 Chop Shop
46 CJ7
78 Counterfeiters, The
30 Cover
48 Dark Matter
35 Deal
61 Dhamma Brothers, The
92 Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The
73 Duchess of Langeais, The
20 Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
58 Fall, The
43 Favor, The
58 First Saturday in May, The
57 Flawless
87 Flight of the Red Balloon, The
xx From Within
44 Frontier(s)
59 Fugitive Pieces
41 Funny Games
66 George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead
61 Girls Rock!
55 Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
57 Grand, The
58 Hats Off
68 Honeydripper
xx Jack and Jill vs. the World
67 Jellyfish
xx Kiss the Bride
37 Life Before Her Eyes, The
72 Life of Reilly, The
50 Look
65 Married Life
35 Meet Bill
63 Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
54 Mister Lonely
52 My Blueberry Nights
71 My Brother Is an Only Child
52 Noise
61 OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
83 Paranoid Park
55 Pathology
48 Penelope
90 Persepolis
62 Planet B-Boy
xx Plumm Summer, A
67 Praying with Lior
46 Previous Engagement, A
72 Priceless
17 Prom Night
69 Redbelt
72 Roman de gare
48 Run, Fat Boy, Run
85 Savages, The
24 Sex and Death 101
66 Shelter
75 Shotgun Stories
40 Sleepwalking
67 Snow Angels
64 Son of Rambow
71 Standard Operating Procedure
76 Stuff and Dough
64 Surfwise
xx Tashan
82 Taxi to the Dark Side
57 Teeth
56 Then She Found Me
55 Tracey Fragments, The
56 Turn the River
72 Tuya's Marriage
83 U2 3D
59 Under the Same Moon
76 Unforeseen, The
xx Unsettled
91 Up the Yangtze
55 Vice
79 Visitor, The
64 Water Lilies
45 Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?
57 Without the King
74 Witnesses, The
63 XXY
67 Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
75 Young@Heart
45 Zombie Strippers

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Fat Girl
Cowboy Films


6.7

based on 24 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 11 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

Internet Movie Database

MPAA RATING: Not Rated

Starring Anaïs Reboux, Roxane Mesquida, Libero De Rienzo, Arsinée Khanjian, Romain Goupil, and Albert Goldberg

The story of Anais (Reboux), an overweight 12-year-old, and her beautiful, thin 15-year-old sister, Elena (Mesquida).

GENRE(S):	Drama
WRITTEN BY:	Catherine Breillat
DIRECTED BY:	Catherine Breillat
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: October 19, 2004 Theatrical: October 10, 2001
RUNNING TIME:	93 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	France / Italy / Spain
LANGUAGE(S):	French and Italian (with English subtitles)

Original French title "À ma soeur!"; Manfred Salzgeber Award, 2001 Berlin International Film Festival

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

With the pitiless, devastating Fat Girl, Catherine Breillat puts men and women, boys and girls on notice: When fantasy, hypocrisy, and manipulation mix in a wet, sandy place, you dive into sex at your own risk.

100

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

An absolute stunner of a movie.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

It's a lean, mean movie, and not a pretty one, but it leaves no question as to Breillat's angular originality as a filmmaker.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

As fascinating as it is discomfiting and as intelligent as it is primal. From first shot to last, France's foremost bad girl has made an extremely good movie -- and maybe even a great one.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Much more than a perfectly realized vignette about seduction. It is the latest and most powerful dispatch yet from Ms. Breillat, France's most impassioned correspondent covering the war between the sexes.

Variety David Stratton

Despite the disappointing conclusion, it's hard not to be affected by the film, because of the director's frank approach to her subject and the sheer skill with which she tells her story.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Proves to be a remarkably lean and incisive film about the fateful power of sexuality.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

It's sensuality with a stinger, and Fat Girl is an adolescent sex drama that takes no prisoners.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

There is a jolting surprise in discovering that this film has free will, and can end as it wants, and that its director can make her point, however brutally.

New Times (L.A.) Bill Gallo

In the end, leaves you feeling both violated and startlingly informed, as if a mugger had whacked you in a dark alley.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

The film's concluding sequence is bound to polarize audiences.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

This disturbing drama has many telling moments, but it ends with an out-of-the-blue shock episode that raises more questions than it answers.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

Breillat has made an important, even essential work about the exploitation of young women's sexuality, but is not she complicit as well?

San Francisco Chronicle Carla Meyer

This is a different kind of girls' movie, and certainly not a pretty one, especially its horrific head-scratcher of an ending.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Characters in Breillat's movies often make sex their god, lose faith in it, then find their lives hollow and grim. Bergman wouldn't have been so concerned with bodily woes, but he'd have understood.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Like "Anais," the only surprises Breillat has in store for us are bad ones. In the willfully perverse final act, she delivers a sadistic blow to the audience -- with a sledgehammer.

Chicago Reader Meredith Brody

The shocking, ambiguous ending might have been better served by the film's original, ambiguous title, "To My Sister."

Boston Globe Jay Carr

Uncompromising and unforgiving, but ultimately more self-destructive than any of its characters.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

So daring and unsparing in its depiction of the psyche and experience of adolescent girls that it's hard to imagine an audience that wouldn't find it deeply provocative despite a slow pace.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

A lovely minor achievement. It would have been major if Breillat had been more expansive with respect to Anaïs instead of contentedly letting her go on about her lumpish ways.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

The kind of stunning and contentious work of art that will leave a lot of folks speechless.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

A laser-sharp evocation of the tortured ties that bind sisters, who can love and loathe each other simultaneously and inflict lifelong wounds with chilling expertise.

Mr. Showbiz Kevin Maynard

It's all well-acted and eerily compelling, but the shocker ending is patently implausible.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak

Assails with its in-your-face, repulsively compelling (like a train wreck) brutality.

The average user rating for this movie is 6.7 (out of 10) based on 11 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Dave S gave it a7:
One of the most disturbing endings in any film I've seen. I have to commend the director on being uncompromising, but it will no doubt bother many.

Frederick F. gave it a9:
This movie is very French so you have to pardon the macabre ending. I personally found the sex to be a little shocking so be advised. Very good movie.

[Anonymous] gave it a3:
Good acting but pretentious and meaningless. All characters are caricatures without any real depth.

Suzanne gave it a5:
Engaging, engrossing, compelling, but very disturbing and I agree that the ending is terrible and implausible. I was stunned and depressed by this film. The material could have yielded a more redeeming picture than the one that resulted.

David G gave it a 1:
I consider this movie pornography, in the worst possible sense. Not because of its sexual content (which really is a tame and banal, though somewhat interesting study of adolescent behaviour) but because of its disgusting violent ending which I believe cannot be justified artistically or ethically. Some violence in a film--even extreme violence--can be understood as an essential plot device, a part of the action, etc. but in this case it simply pollutes the viewer's mind and memory. It is a betrayal of the viewer who has invested 2 hours in a somewhat interesting character study; it is also a betrayal of the film's characters. Sadly the violence in it may actually attract the curious voyeur. A truly terrible movie.

Serge R. gave it a 10:
The psychological interaction that occur between these two young women throughout the film is fascinating. Don't feel bad if you need multiple viewings to fully comprehend it.

Alters M. gave it a 10:
Good film i like it.

Fat Girl Cowboy Films

Fat Girl
Cowboy Films