Perfect cast and a good story

Good movie but grossly overrated

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

What I learned from this film . . . . and the other films of this Director! Words like Provocative, Controversial, Shocking when used to describe a film usually mean a film has already been made that deals with the subject that has more taste, cleverness, attention to narrative believability and character development than the Provocative Controversial and Shocking one.Provocative, Controversial, and Shocking filmmakers can get people to watch their films by being Provocative, Controversial, and Shocking over and over again on basically the same theme.Girls (at least in France) will start French kissing you in a public cafe within the first 2 minutes of meeting you in front of your sister if you are from Italy, cute and have limited command of French but can amazingly have 30 minute intimate conversations and then mentally rape you with their limited command of French.Teenagers (at least in France and parts of Italy) think about sex 24 hours a day and have no other interests that would make them fully rounded human beings worth really caring about and when they actually are intimate show no compassion tenderness or enjoyment of eroticism because men always mentally rape girls and girls are really dense.Mental Rape consists of being - conned into having Anal sex(because it's not real sex)by someone who doesn't really speak your language well- with your sister in the room. Going down on your boyfriend the next day without him even asking because you're "confused" and don't realize you've been mentally raped, but you go down on him anyway because???. Having sex on the beach, again with the sister nearby, having sex at night again with the sister in the room. Telling the girl you really love her and want to see her again and then still not really knowing you've been mentally raped because mental rape means you don't realize you're being mentally raped.Wondering if %100 percent of civilization has been missing out by not having their sister in the room while having passionless sex.There can be really cool scenes on highways that build up and then go nowhere.Serial Killers can blunder out of Nowhere smash your window without your Mother waking up, kill your Sister, rip your mothers clothes and fondle her for no apparent reason before killing her and then not kill you but rape you and make you eat your own underwear but letting you live so there will be a cool freeze frame at the end that is Provocative Controversial and Shocking.It is OK and not outrageously hypocritical for a Director seeking the "truth" to lie to a 13 year old actress by telling them their dog just died to get a performance out of them.It is OK (in France at least) to have a 13 year old perform a brutal explicit rape scene and gag on her own underwear as its stuffed into her mouth and have it not considered pornographic but artistic because its the "truth" - by way of a dead dog that's not really dead.It is OK to mock people even liberals! because they find a 13 year old performing a brutal explicit rape scene and gag on her own underwear as its stuffed into her mouth as pornographic and not enlightened.It is OK to have a 13 year old perform a brutal explicit rape scene and gag on her own underwear as its stuffed into her mouth but not to actually see the finished film because they are not old enough.There are some people who don't understand why the above is painfully ironic and will mock you for mentioning it and call you "Moral" and "you must be an American" These same people are Enlightened.Enlightenment in the 21st century is more of a catch phrase people use when they can't explain why someone is not "Getting It" and are too busy "texting to explain further. It is not the same as Enlightenment in the age that nobody cares about anymore because it happened along time ago and they don't bother to teach it in school because they would have to cut the budget on the new Football field to pay for the classes.It is OK and not outrageously hypocritical for a Director seeking the "truth" about the degrading aspects of sex on women as dealt by men to hire a notorious porn star who has dunked womens heads into toilets while having anal sex to act in your film because he has a big weenie.It is OK and not outrageously hypocritical to say professional seasoned actors are all mediocre and conformists because they are too smart to agree to be in your films.It is OK and not outrageously hypocritical to say professional seasoned actors are all mediocre and conformists because they don't look good nude or have small weenies.Saying "All true artists are hated" is only %50 true. It won't make you an artist but it will get you hated.It is OK for a filmmaker to have a grossly unhealthy, childishly obsessive and ugly view of human sexuality without offering any juxtaposition, contrast or thematic development of this limited theme and pass it off as Provocative, Controversial, Shocking and "truthful" over and over again while using manipulation, hypocritical views, methods and a serious lack of narrative common sense, instead of seeking some kind of therapy so they will stop making the same movies on the same subject the rest of their lives.

This is one of the movies I could easily rate as one of the most hateful movies of all time. I saw it some time ago on TV, as the last thing on that day, so, luckily, it couldn't spoil much of the rest of my day.But I imagine myself what would have been had I seen this on big screen, having paid for it. I think I would have asked myself: "Did I really need to see this ?" Worst thing is it doesn't get that bad, to make you walk out on it, until the last few minutes, but, when it gets bad, it gets obnoxious.I wonder what made the director want to do this movie, then, I remembered that this species of film directors exist for quite some time, who want to stir controversy at all costs, and who live on the hype, and not on the money their movies make.Having said all that I think that this movie could have been saved at least partially, if that last sequence of events had been set only in the imagination of the young girl. All the movie is about the build-up of hate from the main character towards her sister (and her mom, for her indifference), so I could have understood it. But then the director said: "Well, let's make it real. Just for shock's sake. I bet every film critic will have something to say about this."1* (because 0 is not an option on IMDb, unfortunately).

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.

Catherine Breillat's "Fat Girl" (2001) is an astounding movie that provides uncompromising and unblinking look at the relationship between two teenage sisters, and their first sexual experiences. The older sister, 15 years old Elena, has no problems attracting boys' attention and sexual desire and while on the family vacation, she meets an older, more experienced boy, who will say and promise anything to seduce her. There are two long, thorough and uncomfortable scenes of seducing Elena that take place in the girls' bedroom with the younger sister, 12 years old Anais, the fat girl of the title not quite asleep. Breillat remembers well what the hell it is to be a teenager, to be confused, frustrated, to think low of yourself, to be ready to enter the world of sexual relationships, to be ready for love, for intimate closeness and to pretend that you don't care about them at all. She also looks closely and with none a gram of sentimentality into siblings' and parents –daughters relationship. The scenes of cruelty and contempt the older sister treats the younger one alternate with rare but poignant moments of tenderness and understanding. Breillat takes us to places we don't go often and we don't want to go but they exist. If you've seen Brellat's movies already, you know that her outlook is not particularly happy, optimistic, or sentimental but "Fat Girl" will shock you as very few movies can. Just when you think that the movie is over and despite the disappointments, embarrassing revelations, and shameless manipulations, live goes on and has so much to offer, Breillat presents you with the final scene that is very difficult to watch and impossible to forget. It does not matter really if the final scene actually took place or was just a fantasy, just the dream projected on the screen.