Big Girls Need Love Too

Despite the fact that both delve into explicitly sexual thematic content, Catherine Breillat's "A ma Souer!" ("Fat Girl") has very little in common with "Fatty Girl," rapper Ludacris' 2001 paean to badonkadonks. While the latter is laden with overtly sexual chitter-chatter that would make for awkward car rides to Sunday mass with my parents when I was riding in the back seat and too far away from the radio to change the station, I could always bank on the fact that they at least wouldn't always be able to decipher Luda's many euphemisms for tush and bush. A ma Souer! leaves far less to the imagination.

This movie is basically about literally the worst m'er'effing family vacation in the history of western civilization. The main character is thirteen year old, Anais, who spends her vacation getting crapped on by the world and drowning her sorrows in man-sized servings of ice cream. She spends a large portion of the movie doggy paddling in a lonely swimming pool in a one-piece that's regrettably two sizes too small, and role playing make-out scenarios with the diving board. Her parents are distant, if well meaning, and her sister is a burgeoning ho-fo-sho. You breathe a sigh of relief for her towards the end of the movie when the family packs up the Volvo and heads home, but somehow things manage to get even worse from there.

If you're like me, you'll go into this movie thinking back fondly on your favorite donks and the electric energy and moral dubiousness of early Ludacris. But you'll leave with a tummy too full of raisinettes and a hollow feeling in your wiener. And isn't that really the mark of good filmmaking? In a word, no.