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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
Language(s): French and Italian (with English subtitles)
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.
