Fat Girl

It's time for tormented, pretentious, French art-porn director Catherine Breillat (Romance) to spring for a therapist and stop inflicting her rape fantasies and sexual self-esteem issues on the movie-going public. In this latest celluloid catharsis, she applies her now familiar raw, dark, and psychosexual themes to the adolescent psyches of two teenage sisters--one gorgeous, sensual, and sexually active; the other overweight, introverted, jealous, and picked-on. Breillat builds an engrossingly melancholy, manipulative, emotionally complex relationship between the pair--then wantonly changes direction with a graphic, violent, prurient, and utterly arbitrary twist ending that illustrates nothing and resolves even less. Fat Girl could have been a powerful, blunt contemplation of how sexual patterns can become ingrained in young women; instead, it's memorable mostly for the shock value of seeing onscreen erections and underage actresses naked. Not recommended. [Note: DVD extras include a six-minute "making-of" featurette, a 10-minute interview with director Catherine Breillat, another interview with Breillat at the Berlin International Film Festival (12 min.), a liner notes essay, and trailers. Bottom line: a small extras package for a film that split the critics.] (R. Blackwelder)[Blu-ray Review—May 10, 2011—Criterion, 86 min., in French w/English subtitles, not rated, $39.95—Making its first appearance on Blu-ray, 2001's Fat Girl features a great transfer and a DTS-HD soundtrack. Blu-ray extras are identical to those on the previous DVD release, including an interview with director Catherine Breillat at the 2001 Berlin International Film Festival (12 min.), another retrospective interview with Breillat on the production and alternate ending (10 min.), a “making-of” featurette (6 min.), trailers, and a booklet featuring an essay by film scholar Ginette Vincendeau, a 2001 interview with Breillat, and a piece by Breillat on the title. Bottom line: a solid Blu-ray debut for a controversial film that split the critics.]