Fat Girl

''Fat Girl'' (french: À ma sœur!, lit=To My Sister!) is a 2001 drama film written and directed by Catherine Breillat, and starring Anaïs Reboux and Roxane Mesquida. It was released in certain English-speaking countries under the alternative titles ''For My Sister'' and ''Story of a Whale''. The film's plot follows two young sisters as they deal with coming-of-age, sibling rivalry, and desire while on vacation with their family.

Plot

Anaïs and her older sister, Elena, are vacationing with their parents on the French seaside. Bored of staying in their vacation home, the two walk into town while discussing relationships and their virginities. Although the conventionally attractive Elena has been promiscuous, she is saving actual intercourse for someone who loves her, while overweight Anaïs thinks it is better to lose one's virginity to a "nobody" just to get it over with.

They meet an Italian law student, Fernando, at a cafe. Later, Fernando sneaks into the girls' bedroom for a liaison with Elena. Anaïs is awake and watches their entire interaction. After a conversation about Fernando's previous relationships with other women, Elena consents to have sex with him but backs out at the last minute. Frustrated, Fernando pressures her through various means, including threatening to sleep with some other woman just to alleviate himself. Finally, Elena is coerced into anal sex as a "proof of love," although it is obviously a painful experience for her.

In the morning, Fernando asks for oral sex from Elena before he leaves, but Anaïs has had enough and tells them to let her sleep in peace. The next day, the girls and Fernando go to the beach. Anaïs sits in the ocean in her new dress and sings to herself while Elena and Fernando go off alone together. Later, as the girls are reminiscing about their childhood together back at the house, Elena reveals Fernando gave her a ring while at the beach. Anaïs openly expresses her suspicions about Fernando's intentions. That night, Elena gives up her virginity to Fernando as Anaïs silently cries on the other side of the room. Much of this scene is filmed from Anaïs's perspective.

Later, Fernando's mother arrives at the vacation house, asking for the ring Fernando gave to Elena back, as it belongs to her and is one of a collection of pieces of jewellery from past lovers that she keeps. On discovering Elena and Fernando's relationship, her mother angrily decides to drive back from Les Mathes to their home in Paris. On the way back, she becomes tired and decides to sleep at a rest stop, where a man smashes the windshield of their car with an axe, kills Elena, and strangles their mother while ripping her clothes. When Anaïs gets out of the car and starts backing away, he takes Anaïs into the woods and rapes her. When the police arrive the next morning, Anaïs, recalling her conversation with Elena about virginity, insists he did not rape her.

Cast

*Anaïs Reboux as Anaïs Pingot
*Roxane Mesquida as Elena Pingot
*Libero De Rienzo as Fernando
* Arsinée Khanjian as Mrs. Pingot
*Romain Goupil as François Pingot
*Laura Betti as Fernando's mother
*Albert Goldberg as the killer

Production

Breillat's experience during principal photography inspired her 2002 film ''Sex Is Comedy'', which revolves around shooting a sex scene from the film. Mesquida reprised the scene for the later film. Principal photography took place in Les Mathes, France from late 1999 to early 2000.

Catherine Breillat revealed she had a big concern about censorship because in the movie you could see Anaïs's breasts. "I actually wanted her not to have breasts, but her body changed between casting and the end of shooting. It's funny that, if she had been flat-chested, it wouldn't have been an issue", the director said.

Release

Critical reception

The film received generally positive reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of 73% based on 86 reviews, with an average rating of 6.4/10. The site's consensus reads: "The controversial ''Fat Girl'' is an unflinchingly harsh but powerful look at female adolescence." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 77 out of 100 based on 24 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

''Fat Girl'' got an "A" from Lisa Schwarzbaum of ''Entertainment Weekly'' and was called a "startling vision of the prickly crawlspace between innocence and sexual awakening" by Ed Gonzalez of ''Slant Magazine''. Carla Meyer of the ''San Francisco Chronicle'' wrote the film " poses the less sexy things that lust can awaken, like viciousness, deceit and amoral longing".

Stephen Holden of ''The New York Times'' wrote "Reboux's extraordinary performance conveys Anaïs's mixture of precocious insight, animal canniness and vulnerability so powerfully that it ranks among the richest screen portrayals of a child ever filmed". In a review for ''Chicago Sun-Times'' Roger Ebert wrote "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".

David Stratton of ''Variety'' praised the cinematography by Yorgos Arvanitis, calling the film "beautifully photographed and framed". Neil Smith of BBC
...