Movie Review: Fat Girl

WARNING: My boyfriend still claims he is emotionally disturbed after seeing French director Catherine Breillat's, Fat Girl.
 
See this movie is so bad that it's what makes good. You will be left shocked, horrified, and disgusted all in a matter of a second. However the movie has such an impact you are not going to forget it, even though you may be wishing you could.

The entire movie Fat Girl, is in French, however it has English subtitles. At first this annoyed me, but before you know it your sucked right into the story and you're not even aware that you're reading it after a few minutes.

The Story:
 
Fat Girl is about, well, a fat girl.

Anais is a 12-year-old overweight and depressed misfit. Her family constantly looks her down upon, while her 15-year-old sister Elena is geared more towards "the perfect one". She is beautiful, friendly, and has a very bubbly outgoing personality. Basically they try portraying her as 'every man's dream' type of young woman.

The two sisters talk a lot about sex in the very beginning of the movie. They both share what they would prefer out of their first encounter with sex.

Anais discusses with Elena how she would prefer her first sex partner to be a complete stranger with no strings attached, in order to get the whole deflowering process over with.

Elena however dreams of meeting the perfect guy. Someone she could fall in love with, and someone who would love her back. Some to be with forever, and someone to marry.

Once you get a feel for the somewhat dysfunctional family (a workaholic father and a mother who shows no love, nor pays any attention to either of her daughters), the story moves on to the family packing up for a trip to south of France.

On the first day Elena is forced to have Anais tag along with her to a local coffee restaurant that is in walking distance from where they are staying.

The two girls are outside sitting down at the shop, having yet another conversation about sex. As fast as the scene starts there is a man by the name of Fernando, who sits down with the two girls who takes an immediate interest in Elena. Surprise, surprise!

By now as you continue to watch you sort of know what's going to happen between the two.

Hmm...could it be... sex?
 
Once Elena's parents meet Fernando they find it necessary to make Elena bring Anais on every single outing the couple has. This not only bothers Elena, and her insults towards her younger sister become worse and worse. But Anais is also annoyed by it, seeing how when she's along all her sister does is treat her like garbage and constantly make a mock of her.

Not only do you get a sense that Anais is somewhat jealous of her sisters new love interest, but things get a little twisted during one scene where the 12 year old girl explores her own undeveloped breasts in a bathroom mirror. (Mind you; you will be seeing them as well, this is where the movie gets a bit disturbing, and had my boyfriend shaking his head in disgust)

The two girls have come home from a day out with each other and Fernando. This is when there is a lot of sexual frustration on Fernando's part. He sneaks into the girl's bedroom at night, and the entire scene is nothing but 20 minutes of him trying to get her to put out.

He manages to convince Elena that their relationship means forever, and how much he loves her, and how he is doing her a favor by taking her virginity because most men wouldn't have sex with one. At this point you want to smack Elena for being so stupid. 20 Minutes later during this long and tiresome; not to mention perverted scene (seeing how Fernando looks 10 years older than her); Elena finally gives in. You will be seeing a lot of nudity in this scene. No big surprise!

So Elena gets deflowered, however she's also doing the deed while her little sister Anais is laying just across the room in her bed watching. The movie is growing more disturbing and more disturbing.

So what happens in the morning?
 
They end up taking Anais to the beach and doing it on the beach right in front of her. Even though they tell her to leave, she's never no more than 10 feet away from them. This is where you can see how there disgusting open sexual behavior is affecting Anais mental health.

The young girl once again is back to fondling her own breasts in the mirror, and has built up an even larger appetite than before. You start to feel sorry for her with each passing day she has to endure with her sister and her sisters' perverted boyfriend.

There are also some quite disturbing sexual scenes, some even including mild violence and a lot of nudity during this part of the movie.

Fernando gives Elena a ring to show his love, just so he can use her for more of his perverted sexual needs. Later on we discover he had stolen the ring from his grandmother. This is where things get heated up.

Fernando ends up eventually tossing her aside, no surprise there. I already knew that would happen. Elena is now emotionally bruised; her whole family also becomes aware of her sexual adventures when Fernando's Grandmother pays them a visit to get her ring back.

Anais ends up somehow taking part of the blame for her sister's actions, which is also sickening.
The family vacation is ended short because of this, and the car ride home is a bunch of yelling, accusations and the normal family type fighting- this is probably the most normal part of the entire movie.

Just when you think that things are gearing more towards the norm and the movie is about to end with a car ride home. You're given the biggest shock.

The ending is the great gusto to the movie. Not only is it disgusting, but it also leaves you a little bit scarred, and yes, emotionally disturbed.

You will be left saying, 'oh my God, I cannot believe that just happened! This is sick!'
Fat Girl has far too many sexual violent scenes in it. Not only is the entire movie disturbing, but the fact that how the director is portraying Anais as a 12 year old and then having her naked body exposed many times during the movie is also quite bothersome, not to mention illegal here in the USA. I highly doubt she was actually 12, but portraying her as a 12 year old, and with her 12-year-old features, you can't really tell if she really is 12 or not, which is very wrong.
 
My Feelings:
 
I don't still quite understand why the ending had to be so disturbing, and I still honestly don't understand the whole point of the movie?

It basically was just a tell all of how perverted and horny teens and pre-teens can be, by over exposing an already dysfunctional family and their two ignored daughters.

I honestly wouldn't recommend this one to everyone- I would definitely not allow anyone under the age of 18 to watch this one either.

I would however show it to close friends only just to watch their faces at the end. It's really a type of movie that only real movie junkies would want to add to their collection.

However if you do happen to watch this with someone else, you will have a giant one-hour conversation about how bad, yet good it was. Only you cannot decide which. It's just bad all around, however it's good in the aspect that its shock factor was so high. It's not everyday you stumble upon a movie quite like this one.