I had been meaning to get hold of this film since it got my attention whilst browsing the imdb (It's Americanised title "Fat Girl" is what drew me to it in the first place.) Also, having taken A-level French, I occasionally feel it to be my duty to at least attempt to watch some French language films, even if I usually cheat and use the subtitles. After dithering over the copy in my college library for a good four months, today i finally rented it out, prepared to skip through the final ten minutes after preparing myself by reading some spoilers and finding the revelations therein somewhat hard to stomach.

It concerns an eventful summer of two teenage sisters-eerily accurate portrayals of fifteen/thirteen year old girls from Anais Reboux and Roxane Mesquida-the older of whom is slim and pretty, the younger fat and "ugly". The older sister begins a relationship with a student much older than herself, and the younger girl watches with fascination and disgust as this relationship continues and deepens right before her eyes. At only 88minutes or so, to say much else is to give away vast chunks of the plot

Aspects of this film that might put people off:

*It's in french, apart from one short line of dialogue in which a character enquires as to whether she would be better understood in English. Subtitles are available, however.
*Thematically it's fairly heavy going, ranging from sibling rivalry to underage sex and as far as nudity goes it doesn't leave a great deal to the imagination.
*The ending-and this applies to me-may seem a little too rushed or just not fully explained enough to make the film entirely satisfactory.

Aspects of this film that make it worth seeking out:

*Incredible performances from Reboux and Mesquida in the leading roles. Both girls really inhabit their roles, the documentary style of the film adding to the realistic nature of the piece.
*It captures the nature of adolescent attachment extremely well.

Personally, I'm still making up my mind as to whether I truly enjoyed it as a piece. It was not entertaining, nor was it mean't to be-it also seemed to be a predominantly realistic view of the more cosmopolitan teen's views on sexuality, romance and relationships (And by cosmopolitan I don't mean girls who dress and act like carbon-copies of every sexually promiscuous teen idol they ever had, rather I mean girls who have seen sex and the city and still been mature enough to make concious and mature decisions of their own.)

I suppose you could call it a challenging film, in that it does not always cover the road well-travelled. Any comments from others who have seen it very much welcomed

Great review. I completely agree with you, I really wasn't sure whether I liked this film or not. I watched it with someone who said as it began "I hate french films, they're all depressing". I tried to defend it from this xenophobic prejudice, but I think in this case she was right. It was a depressing film, and the rather worrying ending didn't offer any redemption.
I think it was maybe just too 'challenging' for its own good