À ma soeur! 2001

Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: Few movies have so effectively conveyed the alienation of adolescence, and the way children can be driven almost mad by their separation from life and love. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: [W]hen I saw this movie I was kind of mad at the way things had this arbitrary development ... That's what happens in real life. Things happen at random like that and I thought a lot about this movie after I saw it -- days afterwards, a week afterwards. Read more

Susan Stark, Detroit News: Right up to its jarring final sequence, Fat Girl takes that cafe scene as the basis for a tragicomedy that plays out in delicately telling terms. Read more

Melanie McFarland, Seattle Times: Get over the numb shock that accompanies the end credits, give yourself some distance from it and you may actually appreciate the complex machinations behind Breillat's brave, troubled work. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: The characters come across with an unnerving sense of psychological realism and act as a flesh-and-blood foil to the allegorical story. Read more

Stephen Holden, New York Times: Reboux's extraordinary performance conveys Anais's mixture of precocious insight, animal canniness and vulnerability so powerfully that it ranks among the richest screen portrayals of a child ever filmed. Read more

Kevin Maynard, Mr. Showbiz: Disturbing and disjointed. Read more

Chicago Reader: [Features a] shocking, ambiguous ending. Read more

Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times: For French filmmaker Catherine Breillat, relations between men and women are as dangerous as a minefield, and she observes them with a rigorous detachment tempered by a reticent compassion and flashes of spiky humor. Read more

Eric Harrison, Houston Chronicle: This is not one of [Breillat's] better efforts. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: It's a good thing we've got a year until summertime lures us to the dangers of the idyllic again. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: It's compelling, honest, poignant, somewhat sad and, at the end, very disturbing -- in short, quite a good movie. Read more

Manohla Dargis, L.A. Weekly: A strange, discomfiting and fascinating film about the horrors of adolescence. Read more

Peter Rainer, New York Magazine/Vulture: A lovely minor achievement. Read more

Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: The movie is hard and implacable, but worth seeing. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Represents one of the most honest and unvarnished looks at the harsh side of being a teenager since Todd Solondz's Welcome to the Dollhouse. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: There is a jolting surprise in discovering that this film has free will, and can end as it wants, and that its director can make her point, however brutally. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: A lean, mean movie, and not a pretty one, but it leaves no question as to Breillat's angular originality as a filmmaker. Read more

Carla Meyer, San Francisco Chronicle: Exposes the less sexy things that lust can awaken, like viciousness, deceit and amoral longing. Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: Bold but unrelenting in its depiction of both physical and emotional aggression, Fat Girl will be bracing for those open to its challenges and brutal for those who aren't. Read more

Geoff Andrew, Time Out: Read more

David Stratton, Variety: Read more

J. Hoberman, Village Voice: As fascinating as it is discomfiting and as intelligent as it is primal. Read more