Oddly titled 'Fat Girl' for international release, the ambiguity of the original French title of this Catherine Breillat movie is quite important as the film is equally about two sisters: one conventionally pretty and the other slightly overweight. Roxane Mesquida and Anaïs Reboux share excellent chemistry in the respective roles as a family vacation affords them a chance to indulge in their emerging sexual appetites. At times, the girls are highly competitive with Mesquida expressing contempt for the younger Reboux to look cool in front of an Italian law student they befriend; at other times though, the sisters laugh together and share intimate secrets like lifelong best friends. Some have been critical of the explicit sexual scenes here, however, Breillat keeps them minimal and a distance; indeed, in the moments when Mesquida is intimate with her newfound boyfriend, we hear everything but see nearly nothing as the camera focuses on Reboux's face, pretending to be asleep in the hotel room she shares with her sister. If there is something to hold against the film, it is the meandering second half with a lot of lengthy drives taking up much of the screen time with tension evaporating once Mesquida has gone all the way. An unexpected plot turn in the final ten minutes of the film does, however, ensure that the movie ends on a thought-provoking (if not necessarily satisfying) final note.

Sex-obsessed director, Catherine Breillat has only gone and done another film about sex! Well, actually Fat Girl is over a decade old now so she's done a few more sex-related films which I'm yet to see. In fact, Fat Girl is my very first taste of Catherine Breillat and I'll definitely be tucking in for more if they're all as tasty as this one. For those who don't know, Fat Girl tells the story of a chubby 12 year-old gal and her sexy fifteen year-old sister who may as well be called Lolita.The film is pretty short and simplistic but it definitely leaves a lasting impression. I suspect that most people would find it boring because the scenes are extremely long and drawn out. The longest bit must be the extended foreplay scene in which Lolita and her fancy man are on the verge of doing the dirty deed. Not one moment of the film bored me though. I found myself sucked into its atmosphere of stark realism and drawn to the engaging characters.I was also really impressed with the young actors. Anaïs Reboux who plays the fat girl in question was particularly enthralling. It's important to bear in mind that she was only twelve years-old at the time of filming and it's a fairly challenging role to play which deals with adolescence, sexuality and sibling rivalry. There's a lovely tender moment between the two siblings where they lay on the bed and joke together. It feels very genuine and just goes to show how brilliant the two actresses are and how realised their characters are.The film builds up to an awkward car journey which ends in a genuinely unexpected and shocking way. Many people have condemned the ending for being shocking for the sake of it; however I don't think that's true. If you pay attention to the first 70 minutes you'll spot a lot of foreshadowing and find that it actually has a lot of meaning which is important to the overall story. I think it's just the sudden change in tone which people find jarring and off-putting. I'm all for unpredictability though.Quite a lot of people also complain that the film is basically child pornography masquerading as art. The BBFC even cut the DVD release of the film "relating to potential harm, to address the specific danger that video enables the scene to be used to stimulate and validate abusive action." I'd disagree. The scene in question isn't gratuitous (I watched the uncut Australian version) and in my unprofessional opinion isn't harmful or erotic to the rational human mind. It's also very important to the themes of the story.Prudes should also note that the sexy sister was actually eighteen years-old at the time of filming and that the erect penis is actually prosthetic! It is a graphic film, but it is also a film all about sex and sex does tend be to be graphic. I'm not sure why people get so disgusted about graphic sex scenes in films. We all have sex in real life so why is watching it on a screen so repulsive? Anywho, Fat Girl is not a porn film. It is an interesting story about sexual awakening. It's beautifully acted and directed, and also has a wonderfully immersive atmosphere. I'd particularly recommend it to fans of the new French extremity and European art films.

Truthfully I didn't get much out of Fat Girl. It was a moderately realistic approach to a pretty dysfunctional family, with some serious issues thrown in here and there....actually there are issues thrown all over the place. This movie is unique in a way where you don't focus on anything else besides what's going to happen next. For example, films like Happiness or Bad Boy Bubby, these are two films where the situations presented are so strong and realistic feeling you don't even think about the acting or cinematography etc. For this feeling that Fat Girl gives off, the film should be applauded. But on the other hand it doesn't really teach you anything. Anyone with a grip on today's reality, should understand these situations aren't so uncommon. But the ending is a totally different story. I, like everyone else watching this flick was waiting for something to happen to Anaise, but what did occur was pretty out-there. Im sure they could have handled the situation differently, to get that same exact line Anaise spoke. For one, why not have sister's boyfriend rape her? But, I suppose it's not the situation that is most important, but why she said it in the first place. All her talk about not wanting her first to be someone she didn't love.....she wasn't kidding.

Devastating portrait of heterosexuality in a mess. A holiday romance between an beautiful virgin and a bland seducer is anatomised to show every twist and turn of the manipulations involved when a boy tries to get his dick inside a Romantically-inclined girl. The relationship begs many questions, not least why heterosexual sex needs to be conducted under the cloud of subterfuge. All of this is witnessed by the girl's overweight younger sister, a heretic against society's body fascism who carries not just excess body fat but a cynicism about men and relationships which belies her age to a frightening degree.The long central sex scene in the sisters' shared bedroom is painful and authentic, with a morbid humour. The adults in the film - a workaholic bourgeois father, his neurotic wife and the blowzy Italian mama of the boy who indulges in over-dramatic posturing, suggest that the troubled teens have little but hypocrisy and pathology to look forwards to in adulthood.At the end of the film, something truly shocking and horrible happens, after a long and hair-raising driving sequence as terrifying as anything in Duel. The ending is contentious and a deliberate non-sequitur. It seems to be suggesting that the truth about male/female sexuality is a murderous fury from the male end combined with a retreat into self-protective emotional catatonia in the female. A film which has been a social comedy-drama turns into a transgressive fantasy, and the effect leaves a very nasty taste in the mouth, not least because some of the possible readings involve the younger girl both willing and needing the event to happen in order to liberate her from the prison of her family and the oppressive beauty of her sister.