Fat Girl
(À ma soeur!)

Released 2001
Stars Anaïs Reboux, Roxane Mesquida, Libero De Rienzo, Arsinée Khanjian, Romain Goupil
Directed by Catherine Breillat

Fat Girl is a story about sisterhood and sexual discovery. The movie, which includes far more talking than it does sex, is not designed as a tool for arousal. Breillat has worked to de-eroticize the sex scenes, allowing them to work as character-building devices and instances to support her thesis. The film does not have a positive view of men (the same was true of Romance). The male lead is presented as a user and manipulator who will say and do anything to complete a conquest. On the other hand, the girls are not exonerated either - they are presented as being as eager and curious about sex as their male counterparts. Fat Girl also makes a point that beautiful women, who tend to be romantics, may be easier prey for seducers than ugly girls, who tend to have a more pragmatic view of gender interaction.

Anaïs (Anaïs Reboux) is the overweight 12-year old sister of beautiful, svelte Elena (Roxane Mesquida). At age 15, Elena is blossoming sexually, and her fantasies are of losing her virginity to a man she loves. Anaïs, on the other hand, believes it is best to have a first sexual experience with someone when love is not involved - that way, there's no possibility of disillusionment. Anaïs and Elena have a fairly typical sibling relationship - warm and affectionate at times, contentious at others. Elena resents her parents' edict that she has to take Anaïs with her whenever she leaves the vacation house where they are staying. This becomes especially problematic when Elena meets Fernando (Libero De Rienzo), an older boy with whom she wants to explore her sexuality. Because of her sister's constant presence, she ends up losing her virginity while Anaïs is in the same room, pretending to be asleep. Breillat's film explores the intriguing relationship of sisters as they approach sexual maturity. She depicts the solidarity and rivalry, the support and jealousy that are in constant conflict in the interaction between Anaïs and Elena.

Summary by James Berardinelli

I think I've realized I don't need to see any more of Catherine Breillat's films (the other was Romance). I don't know what happened in her life, but she has some troubling feelings toward sex. In this film, she does a superb job of showing an older boy manipulating a young girl, Elena, into losing her virginity. Elena wants to lose it, so it's not real difficult for Fernando to persuade her, but the important part was how he did it. He pleaded, cajoled and guilted Elena into giving up her booty, and I think the sex scenes were very realistic depictions (except for the dry backdoor action) of inexperienced teens going through the motions. I don't think it was very interesting to watch, but I definitely think it showed the typical boy who will say anything to get some mechanical poking and the typical girl who allows herself to believe what he's saying because she wants to have someone love her as an adult. I kept laughing while watching it, because it's so obvious boys will say whatever it takes and girls will buy it. I began wondering if I should have my daughter watch this movie when she turns 13, so she can see a realistic treatment of a girl throwing her virginity away on the wrong person for the wrong reasons. I don't know if that's the right decision, but I want to do whatever it takes to help her make the right decisions. I certainly hope she'll be smarter than Elena.

Now on to the shocking ending. Was this supposed to be real or was it Anaïs' fantasy? Anaïs wanted to lose her virginity to someone she didn't love, and I guess she got her wish. At first I thought it was a dream, but then I decided I don't really care. I wasn't involved enough with the characters to buy into the shocking ending. I expected a car accident because of the foreshadowing, so this came out of the blue for me, and it just didn't work. It would have worked much better if Anaïs had gone to use the restroom by herself and been attacked instead of having the other two killed before she was dragged into the woods. I suppose the reason Breillat did it this way was because it was Anaïs' secret wish to be more desirable than her sister. In this ending, the perp killed Elena and then began to attack her mother until he saw saw Anaïs. Then he decided she was the one he wanted, and he raped her in the woods. I suppose that's why Breillat did it this way, but she could have had the rapist select Anaïs without killing her family. Also, I didn't need to see a 13 year-old girl subjected to this brutality whether or not it satisfied some adolescent fantasy of hers. I looked up Anaïs Reboux's bio on www.imdb.com, and they don't show her age. The girl who played Elena was 20 during filming, so her nudity was ok. It's possible Anaïs Reboux was 18, but she certainly didn't look like it. If she wasn't, then there are some ethical questions raised for the director and the girl's parents.  --Bill Alward, December 31, 2004