VIVA 2011: GORDOS (FAT PEOPLE) review
While there's a framing device that bookends each act, the story properly gets started when a group of overweight people visit a counselling session they've heard can help them. I don't have any rules or regulations for you, the therapist says. I won't insist you exercise, or avoid this food or that - I just want to get to the bottom of what's making you overeat. I want you to expose yourselves to me, just like I'm prepared to do for you. And with that, he starts to strip. Most of his prospective clients head straight for the exit, but a handful of them aren't scared off and slowly follow suit.
A morbidly obese father of two about to turn 50 fears his fat's about to tip him into an early grave, like the rest of his family. An internet technician whose boyfriend is away in the States misses him so badly she's turned to junk food for comfort. A young woman due to marry into a restrictive Catholic community thinks the real reason her fiancé won't touch her is because she's overweight. And a gay celebrity - whose diet pills provide the framing device - stands to lose everything because he's let media attention pressure him into piling on the pounds.
Though Gordos isn't outright or constantly graphic it's definitely not for the squeamish, with enough full-frontal nudity, bodily fluids and sexual content featuring people of all shapes and sizes to leave more sensitive audience members frequently covering their eyes. But there's a playfulness to it and a wry sense of humour, even when it's clearly attempting to push viewers' buttons. From the moment the obese father proves the first to strip - 'I'm happy being fat and naked' - it's clear Arévalo wants to treat his cast as much more than circus exhibits.
All of them have obvious problems, but those problems are not all explicitly linked to their having put on weight, and it's not automatically clear that losing the weight will solve their problems. Though Gordos does use obesity for the kind of comic routines you'd expect, it never wheels these out for the sake of it and doesn't put all the protagonists through them. The script never descends to anything as trite as 'Fat people are people too'. It's made clear this kind of lifestyle is unhealthy, potentially fatal, and society's rarely if ever going to openly accept it. At the same time it doesn't remotely suggest being overweight automatically makes you an outcast, unattractive or incapable, nor does it imply it stops you from being happy.
Each of the protagonists has their own plot thread, though these do begin to interweave as the story progresses. The cast are uniformly terrific, every one of the leads worth following and many of the supporting cast as well. Again, it's a commercial film, and attentive viewers will be able to guess a few of the twists - it's not much of a surprise the therapist turns out to have his own problems. But the cast turn what could have been fairly unremarkable melodrama into moments of heartbreaking emotional impact as well as hysterical comedy.
The pacing does prove somewhat awkward, foreshadowing the ending petering out. The running time's long enough more than one of the cast loses weight, then gains it, then loses it again and while there are clear reasons for this it still occasionally feels as if the story might have been better off on television. Thematically, at least, Gordos is definitely much more than a glorified soap opera but even the darker, edgier bits are sold in the same way you would populist melodrama. It's great when some plotlines just stop in a way which suggests sometimes things don't have a neat and tidy ending. Others, particularly the celebrity and his diet pills, head a little too far into absurdist black comedy to the point it feels like Arévalo didn't quite know how to wrap things up.
But Gordos is still a brilliant piece of work, unwieldy or otherwise. It neatly sidesteps any number of pitfalls, never patronising or pulling its punches on any level, but it resists the temptation to be worthy or holier-than-thou. It's a comedy about fat people that neither mocks them for cheap laughs nor puts them on a pedestal. Obesity's an integral part of the plot but the narrative also looks at who the characters would be without it (much like Trainspotting's relationship with heroin). While it's not a film for everyone, and some way short of perfect, it's still something you wish a lot more people could see and for the right audience, comes very strongly recommended.
(Gordos was screened as part of the 17th Viva! Spanish and Latin American Film Festival running from 5th-27th March 2011 in Manchester.)
Do you feel this content is inappropriate or infringes upon your rights? Click here to report it, or see our DMCA policy.
