FAT (Mark Phinney). 91 minutes. Opens Friday (October 30). See listings. Rating: NN
Mark Phinney’s Fat is focused almost claustrophobically on Ken (Mel Rodriguez), a 30-something Bostonian office worker who is morbidly obese and utterly miserable. His health and social structure have been falling apart for a while, and his only happiness comes from the junk food he consumes when no one is looking. He might as well be shooting heroin, and that’s the point.
Fat is a semi-autobiographical drama about Phinney’s own struggles with depression and weight gain, featuring a genuinely risky performance by Rodriguez, who shot this before landing key supporting roles on TV’s Getting On and The Last Man On Earth. Rodriguez is great. The movie, less so.
Phinney chooses to tell Ken’s story from the perspective of an addict hitting bottom, as Ken cycles through a series of desperate acts driven by self-loathing and self-destructive impulses he can’t even articulate.
It’s an interesting choice, but it isn’t handled in a compelling way. Phinney simply follows the utterly predictable structure of every other low-budget indie about an addict bottoming out, complete with a mawkish soundtrack of songs that narrate the action onscreen rather than enhance it.
