Maxine Powers I wish I could give a good review to this movie, for I had loved such masterpieces by Catherine Breillat as "Romance X", "Anatomy of Hell" and "Blue Beard," but I do not want to be one of those people that once they fall in love with an artist, accept everything by them as genius, as though they can do no wrong. I felt that the movie was trite, fake, overacted, too obvious, and with a ridiculous ending. Now some will talk about symbolic, and metaphorical depth of it, and go on blah blah blah on and on about the themes this film had explored, and use many fancy literally terms, but if I had to describe it in one word, it would be failure.Once again Catherine, investigates the psychology of sibling rivalry. The familiar theme of two sisters, who seemingly love each other, and yet are in turmoil driven by jealousy, and are by circumstances placed into an unseen competition, is the subject of the movie. This time it's a typical French family, on a summer vacation, at a beach town. Elena (Roxanne Mesquida), is a breathtaking 15 year old beauty, (so gorgeous almost makes the movie tolerable), while her sister, Anais (Anais Reboux), is an awkward, antisocial, plump (Fat Girl) 12 year old, who is both jealous and fascinated by her sister, who in turn is thrilled to have an audience for her mischief.The plot unfolds, when a slightly older Italian picks up Elena at a café, and is soon sneaked into her bedroom, where in an absurdly cliché manner, he seduces her to have sex with him. The scenes that were meant to be provocative, felt ridiculous to me, and instead of the thrill of sexual arousal, in certain parts they made me laugh out loud. The utterly banal romance continues, until the parents find out, and are forced to leave the beach house, and that is where an unexpected, and for lack of a better word, stupid ending comes.It's clear what the intention of the movie was, but it was not captured.I really wonder about sibling rivalry. It seems that whoever you are closets to, is the person that will hurt you the most. And though I had grown up without such feelings, (maybe slight competition with my cousins), being the only child. I personally know many people, who are at real war with their brothers and sisters. My mother would be a perfect example, she hasn't spoken to her brother in years. And I see such pattern repeat itself more often than not. Instead of helping, people within the same family, consciously or unconsciously sabotage each other.As I was writing this review I kept thinking about Kane and Allele, and how even The Bible begins with jealousy between brothers. Is this a part of natural evolution, survival of the fittest, a motivation of a sort? Or is it something else?

Florin-C 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).

Michael_Elliott Fat Girl (2001) **** (out of 4) 12-year-old Anais (Anais Reboux) and her 15-year-old sister Elena (Roxane Mesquida) are on summer vacation when the two discover sex and start to explore their virginity. Things take a change for reality when the older sister meets a boy who claims to love her. This is an incredible little film and there's no wonderful it caused so much controversy here in the States. I think it's a damn shame that American films no longer contain any guts and when a film with a true message comes along it usually stirs up trouble. This is an incredibly moving, heartbreaking and shocking look at two young girls and how they view their virginity. The ending was outrageously shocking but the message was right there. It's been a very long time since I've seen a film that left such an impact. I'm sure most will be turned off by the subject matter and the films blunt truthfulness towards that subject but this is a real gem.

schnoidl a true portrait of some incredibly immature people you can't possibly come to care one bit about, who flop from one impulse or random surface emotion to another, lie to and absent-mindedly manipulate each other, with loads of prurient underage sex that adds nothing to the story, and a supremely lazy ending that i wish like hell i could get out of my memory. if you want to believe the above reviewers who say it's all poignant and intimate and all that, well go right ahead and see it. but when you hate the vicious ending and can't get it out of your head ever and it gives you the creeps every time you think of it, well, i did try to warn you. i've seen a couple of her films (this will be the last ever), and she seems to take a very schizophrenic delight in openly wallowing in the permissive/sordid lives of her characters, only to kill them out of nowhere, ultimately an incredibly dull moralizing prudishness masked as curiosity. maybe this smelled like a big windup to some big revelation to her, but to me it just stunk.