Well, I am not sure why director made the decisions she did regarding the last 15 minutes of the film. She seems to have taken a page out of Claude Chabrol's textbook, which may have been a good thing but here it feels rather forced. The film seems to be a "Last Tango in Paris" for teenagers, as a young man from Italy takes up with a French girl who has a love/hate relationship with her fat sister (the title character). As Brando did with Maria Schidner, the Italian guy uses the word 'love' to exploit the girl sexually. The good acting makes the film work, until the part I have qualms. I am not sure the credit fully belongs to the director, but like Larry Clark's "Kids," the result is a profound statement about the cruelty of adolescence. We certainly empathize with the title character, and therefore it is harder to accept certain aspects of this film. The film is one of several French films in recent years with a brutal, pessimistic tone, including "The Dreamlife of Angels" and "demonlover." This film is far better than the director's awful mess "Romance." I can see why some people either really admired or loathed this film. Objectively, no one can take away from the great acting and solid cinematography and for that reason I choose to give it 3 stars as opposed to 2 and a half.
