Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Taraparain Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Numerootno A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

stremelb I'll say that this film would be given more stars out of 10 if the message delivered had been actually fat-positive. Indeed, when I first saw it, about 5 1/2 years ago, I was impressed that it even made it to television at all, given North America's fat-phobic stance. But now that I've learned a little more about oppression, and have opened my eyes to my own experience as a fat person within the larger culture, I have the advantage of seeing things for what they really are. The entire movie seems to target fat prejudice in mainstream culture, but the messages throughout are anything but: fat people can only be losers. Only 'losers' hang out with fat people because they can't get any 'real' friends. Every thing about this film suggests that, although the main character becomes more 'sympathetic' to the 'fat experience', it's still okay to be mad at people for being fat and the best we can do for fat people is feel sorry for them because of the mockery made of fatness in modern culture. At the end of the movie, any semblance of a positive message is all thrown in the can when the potential love interest of the 'fat' girl admits that in reality it could never work between them if she was actually fat because he enjoys sports (which, effectively, suggests that fat people cannot and do not enjoy physical activity, further perpetrating the stereotype). As one of the most accepted forms of bigotry, fat prejudice definitely benefits from exposure and from being challenged. I agree with what's being said by other reviewers here. I would not let my daughter watch this, if I could help it. Not if I wanted her to have a more holistic outlook of the various forms people come in, and not if I wanted her to have a healthy body image, whatever her size happened to be. I just hope that in the future, films made like this one carry it all the way to the end without falling back on tired stereotypes.

edwagreen One major flaw with this interesting film. What makes fat people eat incessantly? This is never discussed in the film.Nonetheless, this is an interesting film dealing with how fat people are treated by society. They are outcasts and that is so true.Kaley Cuoco, the star lead of the film, is a look-alike for Cameron Diaz."Gentleman's Agreement" had a reporter posing as a Jew to see what it's like being Jewish. "Black Like Me" had someone passing as a black person to experience anti-black sentiment. This is the underlying idea of this film as well.The girl has an on-going dispute with her ex-heavy mother. She is angry that her mother's obesity led to illness that took money away from her possibly attending college. When she loses a sport scholarship do to an injured leg, she enters a contest to create a documentary. The subject is to be fat.Depicting personal feelings of obese people is definitely the way to go. We need much more human understanding in this area as well.

nozdrev1 well, my father was overweight and died of a heart attack while he was still young.It was his choice, and he did it his way certainly. But what about his children? You may be pleased to have a child and die at 50, but I am not so sure that your child will have feel the same way.so, fat is a feminist issue, but it is also a medical one; i know as i am a doctor.the film does give the male a pass. After showing himself so completely shallow, and that I mean completely, he is given a pass by the heroine. I wonder what she has learned if she can tolerate such behavior. Would she have tolerated racism?

PrincessN1984-2 We've all heard the slurs, the slang, and the taunts coming from "anti-fat" people, or even little kids. Words like "porker", "fat ass", "tubby" and "lard ass" sting to the bone. Then there are the little noises that emerge from people when we fat people are around, the "boom, boom, boom" when you walk by them, or even the stares and giggles. No matter how much we don't want it to effect us, it always will. Fat is one of the last "acceptable" forms of discrimination. We have seen adults on talk shows delve into the situation, such as Tyra Banks. We have also seen articles, by Leslie Lampert, but this movie, To Be Fat Like Me, looked into a teenager's perspective.To Be Fat Like Me stars Kaley Cuoco and Caroline Rhea (who has been known to struggle with weight herself). Kaley's character, Ali (based on an actual person), is a pretty, popular, "jock", who needs a scholarship to be able to go to college, due to her mother getting ill six years earlier. Her mother, played by Caroline Rhea, was fat, and when diagnosed with diabetes, did nothing to improve her eating, and ended up in the hospital. Her medical bills wiped out the college fund, so Ali has a huge resentment that she must work double shifts and rely on a softball scholarship to be able to go to "State".During the game in which a college scout comes to see her, Ali's leg is injured, while sliding to a base. Her scholarship is blown, or so it seems. An opportunity to make a documentary to win a scholarship is presented to her, and while watching her brother get bullied because of his weight, she decides that she will go undercover as a fat girl to prove that weight has nothing to do with popularity. Her neighbor is a makeup artist and agrees to help her with her fat suit, which she hides from her family.Ali goes to summer school, at a different school as not to be recognized, and is quickly greeted by "moos" and "booms" as she walks to her seat. She befriends another fat girl, and her friend a "geek", and a friendship blossoms, all the while, she hides that she is doing the documentary and that she is really a thin, popular, pretty girl.Ali learns that being fat is not easy, and has everything to do with popularity in high school. She also learns that lying to her friends and family is not acceptable, and that the people she could truly rely on won't stand by her if she lies to them.Although many people saw this as an "anti-fat" movie, I think it showed a good perspective as to what it's like to be fat in high school. I could feel all of the negative feelings I felt in high school coming back as I watched. This movie really touched on what us fat people feel when we look in the mirror, what our diminished self esteem can be like when people continually taunt us, and what its like to shop in a store where we don't get the service we deserve because of our weight.