Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Stoutor It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Film Watchin Fool My Score: 5.6Terri is not a movie meant to wow you and primarily is a film about the struggle of a young 15 year old named Terri to get through everyday life. He is overweight, a social reject, wears pajamas to school, and lives with a dying uncle to name a few. It is fair to say that this movie is fairly depressing, but it has some comic relief.Terri is played by Jacob Wysocki, who gives a great performance and overall the acting is impressive. John C. Reilly is very solid as Principal Fitzgerald. Truthfully, the story doesn't offer much outside of the struggles of an overweight 15 year old, who is having to deal with a ton of unfortunate stress. I would only recommend to viewers who are interested in seeing a movie that really is about a struggling teen as it offers very little outside of that.

fedor8 A comedy drama? They could have fooled me. "Terri, you're so funny," says the blond. Which Terri has she been watching?"Terri" is yet another non-saga about an outsider, another lone-boy/misfit tale that the world of film doesn't necessarily need. A dull fat kid hates his life, and he has every reason to. If I had to carry that much extra weight around with me then I'd jump off the first bridge – or go on an extreme diet; no third option there. But it's this third option of Terri just walking around depressed and glum that the movie focuses on, which is admittedly how it is in real life. (It is this inertness and lack of self-initiative that gets fatties into their unhealthy predicaments in the first place). As if we hadn't seen it all before, on film or in real life.Fat Boy has his reasons for being obese and undisciplined (as much as having layers of flab during teenage years can ever be justified), but it's hard to care that much. Perhaps if Chubbs were more interesting or at least a little more animated. While I do not support direct verbal abuse of obese people (ridiculing them behind their XXXL backs is perfectly fine), especially abuse of lard-ass kids, in any kind of public situation, I do nevertheless believe that most fatties need some amount of harassment and abuse in order to wake and smell the coffee, a reminder that the excessive crap they're carrying around with them isn't anything they should ever get used to. For those who don't change their gluttonous ways even after they'd been mocked for the umpteenth time and can barely get out of bed without the aid of a crane or three strong wrestlers, they don't deserve either our time or our pity. Terri's P.E. teacher is right on the money with his criticism of Blob Kid. Terri's response to whether he wants to participate in P.E. class is a resounding "no". If I were that teacher I'd have him crawling on all fours until he's blue/red/yellow/green in the face and until he'd vomited his last five bean-based breakfasts."Terri" has no point to make, aside from a few observations about "the human condition", which is, I guess, why this movie's poster is full of those useless-movie-festival and hopelessly-deluded-critics' quotes that are supposed to elevate a merely solid movie into the status of a minor classic. Indeed, the writer/director was obviously clueless about how to end the movie, which is why it has no real ending; no conclusion, no main event, nothing tangible to wrap up the story in a meaningful way. This might as well be the first episode in a TV mini-series.That wasn't the only part of the script the writer/director was unsure about. He must have been puzzled how to make Terri and the blond beauty interact (considering how relatively boring he had made the title character) in Blubber-Boy's house, so he inserted the highly predictably plot-device of Chad interfering with their first meeting/date, acting as a catalyst to the movie's worst and dumbest moments.Speaking of which, while Terri at least appears like a reality-based character i.e. someone we can believe actually exists on planet Earth, Chad doesn't – in the slightest. Chad is one of those absurd dime-a-dozen High-School-movie inventions of the sort that we'd already seen in countless cliché teen flicks about very fictional kids. Even worse, this badly written part was also badly miscast; giving it to some skinny little runt-of-the-litter loser kid who can't weigh more than 35 pounds was just adding insult to injury. (I suppose we were supposed to find the body contrast between the heavyweight and the ultra-featherweight kids very amusing.) Both Chad's character and the actor who plays him are highly annoying, adding nothing to the story except unnecessary nonsense. Chad's overly adult (hence absurd) humour and the illogical amounts of confidence he carries (for a runt of his kind) weigh down the director's attempts at realism. The film hits its low point when Chad gets high and starts urinating on his pants, a ludicrous scene that must have caused that deranged, empty-headed buffoon Harmony Korine ("Ken Park") to cry out: "I wish I'd thought of that!" Perhaps John Waters would have gladly done it too, in one of his older movies. Chad offering his tiny pecker to the blond was just as absurd; perhaps a scene more fitting in a "Porky's" movie.That whole awful blond-comes-over-to-Terri's-house segment utterly sinks whatever seriousness or momentum the film had built up until that point. It failed comedically too – in case that had been the writer/director's goal, which is hard to tell. In fact, there wasn't one moment in the movie that I could label as truly funny. There was a handful of mildly amusing moments, but that's about it. Terri should have signed up for an episode of MTV's "Made"; that would have been funnier and no less "poignant". In reality, the blond would have wanted Terri only as a friend; the fact that this experienced harlot wants him sexually, drugged or not, has no basis in reality.The pajama-wearing hasn't an iota of realism, nor does the masturbation scene; these kids would have done it in the toilet.The movie does have a solid look though, and the dialogue (apart from Chad's) is generally OK. Reilly's school principal has some originality, and ultimately this should have been a story about him, not the fat kid who needs the boob-job. I'd like to use this opportunity to recommend Ricky Gervais's stand-up comedy, during which he often has a lengthy segment in which he ridicules obesity. It's some of the funniest stuff I'd seen in a while.

gregking4 This warm, quirky and yet oddly endearing drama is another low-budget independent American coming of age tale that details the hardships of life in a small town high school. Terri (Jason Wysocki) is a morbidly obese, socially awkward and shy teenager who is a misfit at school. He lives with his uncle (The Office's Creed Bratton) who is suffering from early onset of dementia. Terri is always late to school and often turns up in his pyjamas. But when the school principal Mr Fitzgerald (John C Reilly) takes an interest in him, Terri's lonely and miserable life undergoes something of a change. When he reluctantly opens up he finds a couple of new friends in the beautiful but troubled Heather (Olivia Crocicchia) and the weird and troubled Chad (Bridger Zadina), who is another of Fitzgerald's special "projects". The film has a painful ring of truth to it, and director Azazel Jacobs (whose previous film Mamma's Man explored similar uncomfortable territory) maintains a low key and unsentimental approach to the material. Co-written by Jacobs and Patrick Dewitt Terri also has a semi-autobiographical feel to it, and should resonate strongly with a certain audience. The performances of the young, unknown cast are solid. In Particular, newcomer Wysocki is outstanding, and brings an honesty, vulnerability and sensitivity to his performance. Reilly also brings some welcome touches of humour to his role as the clueless but well meaning principal who is trying to prevent certain kids from falling through the cracks in a system that can't really cope with the disengaged and disconnected. The scenes that the always reliable Reilly and Wysocki share are amongst the best in the film.

thesar-2 'Terri' has to be the most awkward movie I've ever seen…dang, I must've forgotten High School, it's been so long. This WAS high school for me, except for the fact I would Terri's Siskel to his Ebert. At any rate, it was an enormously slow-paced film filled with tension – I mean, you never know with these types of films: Will Terri pull out that gun and finally pull the Columbine on his peers? Will that principal ever hit on one of the male students? Will anyone do anything for the 105 minutes? Actually, I sound harsh on this – despite its low-key, high tension and awkwardness, I enjoyed it. The acting was FANTASTIC all around; the movie was incredibly real and touching, yet weird at times. You can never ever get your head around a lot of these complex characters, namely and especially Terri. I know I couldn't, but by the end, I did have a better appreciation for him. Great little movie. 4/5 Stars.