This new film, the story of a morbidly obese teacher eating himself to death while grieving the death of his gay lover and attempting to reconnect with his daughter, walks an interesting line between, on the one hand, ticking all the boxes of the modern identity politics checklist - gay lovers, diverse casting, perpetually-angry women and Christianity-bashing - while also delivering the most crushing blow to the body positivity movement that has perhaps ever been put onscreen: the feeling of horror and revulsion that Brendan Fraser in his fat suit manages to evoke in the viewer is quite a wonder: he really does look like a whale whenever he struggles to his feet, and his complete inability to meaningfully function in the world, or even in his terminally collapsing body, is kept front and center the whole film, never shied away from or sanitized.

The three female roles are well-acted (Hong Chau, especially) but the characters they play are pretty unpleasant and hostile, and the daughter in particular is thoroughly despicable, which the script never really addresses in a serious-enough way. Meanwhile the men are all weak and pathetic and relentlessly apologetic. It's hard to say what the point of it all is, other than to spend two hours in the company of no-one you'd want to know, but it does hold the attention for the most part and Fraser makes of his role something quite memorable.

There's no great twist to the story, and it never escapes the feeling of being just a well-shot play, almost entirely set in the same room, with people continually getting up to leave and then deciding to stay a little too often. Much of the script is lazy, with weak characterizations for everyone, and it falls quite some way short of adding up to anything meaningful enough to truly justify the time out of our lives we give it. But it's still a cut above most things at the cinema these days and one of Aronofsky's better films.

This movie is just a movie with an agenda and offers nothing outside the usual Hollywood BS. Everything in this movie is exaggerated especially the daughter Ellie. Why is it that in American movies teenagers are always portrayed as evil? I raised 2 teenagers and my son played soccer so we had a significant number of teenagers around us for years, we went to their homes and became friends with their families, I've never encountered a teenager who is as rude and mean as they are portrayed in movies and TV shows. I know the mean ones exist but that doesn't make it the norm. Fortunately they are a tiny minority.

The main character Charlie, of course is gay because according to Hollywood, everyone in the world is gay now. But at the same time that same character was married and had a daughter. Which is it? You make a movie about a father and his daughter so why force the gay thing into this again. That shows how bent Hollywood is on forcing their agendas onto everyone. I'm so happy I collect movies and tv shows I can go back to because soon there won't be anything left to watch that doesn't try to brainwash all of us.

Anyway, I didn't keep watching this farce. I gave it 2 stars for Brendan Fraser's awesome performance.

This film started well but then began to drag and became more of the same. Brendan Fraser plays Charlie an obese English teacher who is heading for an early death . A loss in his life has led to him not caring about his weight . He sits on his couch eats and eats and teaches his class . He doesn't let his students see his face . Charlie's main visitor is his friend and carer Liz. (Hong Chau) She cares for him and wants to help him but Charlie refuses to go to hospital . He does want to make things right with his daughter élie who dislikes him .

The film is based on a play and you can tell . Most of the film is in one room and it drags . The standout of the film is rhe performance of Brendan Fraser .