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76
(500) Days of Summer
60
9
17
All About Steve
37
Amelia
53
Astro Boy
66
Bandslam
45
Box, The
61
Capitalism: A Love Story
55
Christmas Carol, A
43
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
66
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
29
Collector, The
23
Couples Retreat
80
District 9
61
Extract
39
Fame
30
Final Destination, The
34
Fourth Kind, The
60
Funny People
32
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
27
Gamer
41
G-Force
39
Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, The
46
Halloween II
73
Hangover, The
78
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
55
I Can Do Bad All By Myself
66
Informant!, The
69
Inglourious Basterds
58
Invention of Lying, The
47
Jennifer's Body
66
Julie & Julia
34
Law Abiding Citizen
33
Love Happens
54
Men Who Stare At Goats, The
67
Michael Jackson's This Is It
51
My Sister's Keeper
42
Orphan
28
Pandorum
63
Perfect Getaway, A
86
Ponyo![]()
35
Post Grad
48
Proposal, The
30
Saw VI
53
Shorts
24
Sorority Row
83
Star Trek![]()
33
Stepfather, The
45
Surrogates
55
Taking Woodstock
47
Time Traveler's Wife
96
Toy Story/Toy Story 2 3D![]()
35
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
28
Ugly Truth, The
88
Up![]()
71
Where the Wild Things Are
67
Whip It
28
Whiteout
73
Zombieland
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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Now In Theaters
58
(Untitled)
96
35 Shots of Rum![]()
56
Adam
72
Adela
39
Adventures of Power
78
Afghan Star
61
After the Storm
66
Afterschool
xx
All the Best
58
American Casino
72
Amreeka
48
Antichrist
73
Araya
62
Art & Copy
55
As Seen Through These Eyes
76
Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86
Beaches of Agnes, The![]()
13
Beautiful Life, A
70
Beeswax
35
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
71
Big Fan
66
Black Dynamite
51
Blind Date
xx
Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly
76
Bliss
35
Blue Tooth Virgin, The
26
Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
57
Boys Are Back, The
45
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81
Bright Star![]()
70
Bronson
45
Burning Plain, The
xx
Carriers
55
Casi Divas
57
Chelsea on the Rocks
62
Cloud 9
65
Coco Before Chanel
69
Cold Souls
59
Collapse
44
Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha
82
Cove, The![]()
75
Crude
82
Damned United, The![]()
67
Departures
xx
Dil Bole Hadippa
71
Disgrace
xx
Do Knot Disturb
70
Earth Days
24
Eating Out 3: All You Can Eat
85
Education, An![]()
55
Endgame
xx
Eulogy for a Vampire
xx
Everyone Else
xx
Fatal Promises
56
Fifty Dead Men Walking
62
Five Minutes of Heaven
74
Flame & Citron
49
Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80
Food, Inc.
28
Free Style
xx
From Mexico with Love
50
Fuel
25
Gentlemen Broncos
50
Give Me Your Hand
58
Gogol Bordello Non-Stop
72
Good Hair
89
Goodbye Solo![]()
52
Grace
64
Harmony and Me
81
Headless Woman, The![]()
xx
Heretics, The
63
Horse Boy, The
73
House of the Devil, The
xx
How to Seduce Difficult Women
74
Humpday
94
Hurt Locker, The![]()
29
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
16
If One Thing Matters: A Film About Wolfgang Tillmans
75
In Search of Beethoven
83
In the Loop![]()
61
Intimate Enemies
42
Irene in Time
70
It Might Get Loud
46
Killing Kasztner
19
Labor Day
xx
Laila's Birthday
41
Little Ashes
41
Little Traitor, The
66
Liverpool
34
Looking for Palladin
80
Lorna's Silence
83
Maid, The![]()
xx
Ministers, The
59
More Than a Game
67
Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, The
34
Motherhood
62
My One and Only
xx
Mystery Team
48
New York, I Love You
73
Night and Day
66
No Impact Man
47
Ong Bak 2: The Beginning
34
Other Man, The
xx
Painter Sam Francis, The
54
Paper Heart
xx
Paradise
68
Paranormal Activity
68
Paris
44
Peter and Vandy
35
Play the Game
77
Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
xx
Pretty Ugly People
65
Providence Effect, The
76
Rembrandt's J'accuse
69
September Issue, The
79
Serious Man, A
40
Shrink
61
Skin
77
Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake, A
xx
Skiptracers
46
Splinterheads
39
St. Trinian's
89
Still Walking![]()
50
Stoning of Soraya M., The
55
Storm
65
Tetro
70
That Evening Sun
72
Thirst
xx
Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas 3D (re-release)
61
Trucker
xx
Turning Green
83
U2 3D![]()
66
Unmade Beds
66
Unmistaken Child
70
Visual Acoustics
55
Walt & El Grupo
67
Way We Get By, The
69
We Live in Public
64
Wedding Song, The
64
Where is Where?
xx
White on Rice
74
Woman in Berlin, A
69
World's Greatest Dad
70
Yes Men Fix the World
69
Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
xx
You, the Living
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Fat Girl

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 24 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 11 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by: Catherine Breillat
Directed by: Catherine Breillat
Release Date:
Theatrical: October 10, 2001
DVD: October 19, 2004
Running Time: 93 minutes, Color
Origin: France / Italy / Spain
Summary
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).
Also On Metacritic
FILM: A Real Young Girl Anatomy of Hell Romance Sex is Comedy
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database
What The Critics Said
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...
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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
The film's concluding sequence is bound to polarize audiences.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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?
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Meredith Brody
The shocking, ambiguous ending might have been better served by the film's original, ambiguous title, "To My Sister."
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Jay Carr
Uncompromising and unforgiving, but ultimately more self-destructive than any of its characters.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan
The kind of stunning and contentious work of art that will leave a lot of folks speechless.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
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.
