Dominique Dibbell I stumbled across this movie on HBO. I hadn't heard of it before, but I found it enjoyable and uplifting. I was surprised to see it got such low ratings online. I must conclude that haters gonna hate. Monique is really a great actress, funny and able to bring depth of feeling. It had a positive message about loving yourself no matter what society says. No, it's not a masterpiece of cinema, but compared to other romantic-comedies, it's better than many.I'd take Monique and her team over Adam Sandler/Drew Barrymore/Jennifer Anniston/Judd Apatow nonsense. Those movies ultimately reinforce a white-male dominated status quo.

vchimpanzee I admit it. I'm guilty of wanting to look at women who are slim and trim. Some people complain that the women I like looking at have eating disorders or are unhealthy, but I just don't see it. And there are plenty of these women in this movie. One is the young hot babe who accompanies our plump heroines to the expensive spa treatments.But Jazmin and her best friend are right. A woman can be large and attractive, and apparently, if this movie is to be believed, Nigerian men have the right attitude. Women who look like models are malnourished. It's unfortunate that this movie relies heavily on subtitles because things can happen, and did, I almost missed one of the funniest jokes in the movie but got a second opportunity to see it later. The joke was that the hot babe with the Nigerian doctor was a poor sick girl.Jazmin, of course, does a number of things people shouldn't actually do, but it's a fantasy. If you assault someone who insults you and wreck a fast-food place, you should go to jail. This is a fantasy people might enjoy watching because they'd like to do what Jazmin did.Mo'Nique gives a very good performance, one that suggests she might someday get an Oscar nomination. While she does a good job overall, she has one truly frightening scene as she struggles with her difficulties in life. Jimmy Jean-Louis does an excellent job as her boyfriend, and all the actors playing African men do a very good job as well. The humor is quite sophisticated in their scenes, and there are glimpses of African culture for those of us with European heritage.Some of the movie is just plain silly, though. But overall, I think this would have been a good choice if African Heritage Network movies were still airing. I haven't seen any of those lately on my area TV stations, but they promoted positive images of people with African roots. In many ways, this movie does.I am confused about a couple of things. I thought among black people, big women were desirable. I thought it was just white and Asian women (and possibly Latinas) in this country who had to meet certain standards of beauty to be accepted by narrow-minded men. That's just not the case with the Americans in this movie. Also, Jazmin seems to be the pot calling the kettle black as her men have to have perfect bodies.And not once does anyone say Jazmin is beautiful BUT. A woman that big is likely to have health problems, and she should try to lose the weight if she can for that reason. That message was not addressed.It's a worthwhile movie.

koyasu_kudou I knew that this movie wasn't going to be particularly moving, but I didn't realize it was going to be absolute crap. The idea behind this film was to break barriers and stereotypes, but that can't be done if you keep perpetuating them at the same time.According to this movie fat women are dateless, desperate, and can only attract men from far away, impoverished countries where being obese is a good thing because food is so scarce. Talk about building up a woman's self-esteem. And the whole "thin people are evil;they need to eat and get fat too, so that I can feel better" theme, is just embarrassing.An obvious hypocrisy is how fat women are accepted in this film, but the only men depicted as love interests had to have above average bodies. It wasn't okay to ignore fat women, but it was okay to ignore fat men and even men who were just average.Altogether Phat Girlz was pitiful and treated the idea of taking overweight women seriously like a funny daydream rather than a real possibility.

Dragoneyed363 I know I am vastly in the minority on this decree, but I found this movie to be hilarious. I admit it was very poorly done and the film itself was unprofessional, and definitely nowhere near a masterpiece, but hey, it's just good fun and not meant to wow the audience. I laughed my tail off at some of the jokes, because it is a really funny movie, and even though it could have been a lot better, it was enjoyable, entertaining and overall a very cute and fun movie to watch. Mo'Nique is really a joy and steals the show, whereas everyone else just tags along for the ride. The plot was warming, even if it had plot holes, and I was entertained thoroughly from beginning to end.It's getting way too much unfair treatment, as do a lot of movies on IMDb, and people just really need to open their eyes to all of them on here, because the ratings and comments on many, including this one, are ridiculous. Overall, it was a bad movie, but not in the sense of, "Oh my gosh, this is absolutely terrible." I totally enjoyed it and found it to be a really neat little movie in the end, and think that all the haters should rethink just a bit, because Mo'Nique is proving that BIG is beautiful.