This review may contain spoilers
**Mentions of SA & ED**Our FL is a brilliant and passionate cook, but she is still cooking for her mother's students instead of following her dream of being a chef and doesn't seem to have that push to follow that dream.
The film begins with our endearing yet apathetic FL who instantly gets judged for buying lots of pudding, but it turns out they are for the children she's cooking for and we get to watch her create delicious meals for them with ease, before talking to her mother who spends her daughter's birthday putting her down, doesn't turn up to her self-cooked birthday meal and simply texts her "eat less." "You're getting fatter."
Some neighbourhood kids decide to mess with our FL, because simply existing as a plus size woman is just unacceptable and they throw eggs at her, this is followed by some comic relief with her opening the door to a smiling delivery driver with a meat cleaver aimed for him.
It turns out her mother has bought something for her daughter's birthday after all, she's signed her up for a weight loss programme. When she gets there, the instructor asks her why she wants to lose weight and her response of "My mom wants me to." With such a deadpan face made me almost spit my drink out.
On a hot summer's day, she meets her neighbour on the stairs and the two walk up to their respective doors, only for the elderly man to attack and grope her from behind before she throws him down the stairs. The wife of course says the husband would never as he's hauled off in an ambulance, our FL is too ugly to molest obviously so why would he /s? Until our ML comes out to defend her. He comforts our FL and reveals he used to be fat himself before he invites her to come for a ride in his van while he finishes his deliveries.
The two begin to bond and become fast friends, with the secrets of our ML's weight loss revealed after the FL notices marks on his knuckles and after she follows him with his left-behind work lanyard, she discovers him throwing up the food she'd just cooked for him.
The people around her treat her as though she's something to be ashamed of, the ML treats her as just a delivery client when his friend enquires who she is (but that may be his own shame at her finding out about his ED) and her mother doesn't put her chef photo into the menu. The weight loss centre seems to switch between constantly chastising her and pushing supplements/weight loss surgery. From every angle you can practically feel the world suffocating her step by step and the actress plays that sense of battered deflation so well.
Her breakdown and quiet sobbing in her bedroom after her fight with her mother had me crying right along with her.
She leaves the job at her mother's academy and decides to get the weight loss surgery, every step of it alone and her depression is clear to see in the way she acts and looks, no need for her to say a word.
This movie and this actress are great at showing her mindset in every scene. It's evident when she loses her sense of taste and her food starts to be affected, her joy and final straw seemingly broken.
The way she confessed to her mother how she'd tried everything and still wasn't good enough had me crying for a second time, it was a quiet moment between mother and daughter that shouldn't have had to happen for her mother to see her as a person. A broken, tired person. But it was needed, it was a cathartic scene and I enjoyed the people watching and seeing her smile.
I liked the side plot of the little boy and how he brought a sense of hope in the story, that maybe his life would be different when he grows up and it really showed how no matter how many people judge our FL, she had never done it to someone else.
There are a lot of quiet, contemplative moments in this movie, with soft music and the orange/red hue giving it a hazy feeling that pull you into the almost mundane, repetitive and sedimentary life the FL lives and I couldn't stop watching. All the praise to the main female lead as her acting and chemistry with the other actors gave it such a slice of life feeling that I got lost in the film. The cinematography and direction was beautiful and at some points you almost felt like you were walking with the female lead and her discomfort in a world that doesn't just not accommodate her but demonises her for just being her. I will definitely watch this again in the future, such a brilliant film!
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