Fat Girls

In this sort-of Napoleon Dynamite for the gay set, a somewhat overweight gay teen, Rodney (Ash Christian), struggling through life in his Texas town endures many of the benchmarks of being a gay teenager, including falling for the cool new kid, going to his first gay bar, and negotiating the ins and outs of taking a male date to the prom. For support, he leans on his hefty gal pal Sabrina (Ashley Fink), who shares his dream of running off to New York City to become a Broadway star. Though it might like sound a recipe for yet another self-consciously earnest coming-out story, Fat Girls forgoes such melodrama in place of scathing sarcasm, giving us a pseudo-hero who thinks himself superior to anyone who doesn’t understand him, and who generally behaves like a bona fide brat.

That conceit is also the movie’s biggest flaw. Christian seems to champion Rodney’s rude indifference as a selling point, but Rodney is not a particularly likeable character. He and Sabrina are dismissive of basically everyone they know, so much so that—despite a very solid first half-hour that produces many belly laughs—the movie eventually unravels during its forced second and third acts. It would help if the film had a point of view beyond aping Dynamite, a suspicion that is supported by Christian’s increasingly tiresome camera mugging and an out-of-nowhere ending that proves the young triple-hyphenate still has much to learn about storytelling.

Still, there’s an unmistakable flair to Christian’s vision, and he is assisted by a strong cast (Fink is especially effective, while Deborah Theaker is sensationally droll as Rodney’s waywardly Christian mother) in his efforts to breathe new life into the teen comedy. Despite its flaws, the movie will likely be enjoyed by anyone who’s ever endured the humiliations of growing up gay. Not too bad for a first feature effort. —Ken Knox

Molière

A gorgeous, inspired period romance in the vain of Shakespeare in Love, Laurent Tirard’s (The Story of My Life) Molière takes an imaginary look at what might have transpired during a few unaccounted-for years in the life of famous French playwright Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, better known as Molière.

Set in an extended flashback that takes place in the mid-1600s, the film introduces us to the young Poquelin (Romain Duris), who is bailed out of jail for not paying his debts by the wealthy Jourdain (Fabrice Luchini). Jourdain wants Poquelin to teach him how to act so that he can perform a self-penned one-act for a snooty society girl. Though he initially resists due to pride, Poquelin decides that he’d rather compromise his integrity than return to jail, and pretends to be a priest—Monsieur Tartuffe—so as not to arouse suspicion with Jourdain’s suspicious wife, Elmire (Laura Morante), who soon becomes enamored with her mysterious house guest.

If it sounds like one of Molière’s plays, that’s the point. Indeed, the conceit of the film is that it tells what might have been as if it were written by Poquelin himself. Mistaken identities abound, as do comic foibles in the forms of dastardly noblemen, clueless sophisticates, and, yes, various romantic entanglements. Like Shakespeare in Love, the movie purports that several of Poquelin’s comedies were inspired by events from his actual life, particularly his love affair with the lovely Elmire, whose advice that he should forego tragedy in favor of comedy inspires the too-serious ahhhctor to make people laugh.

An enjoyable and lavish romp from start to finish, Molière is occasionally a bit too amused by itself, but it’s impossible not to give in to the film’s spirited enthusiasm. As Molière himself, Duris does a wonderful job with both shtick and sentiment, while the lovely Morante—so wonderful in Private Fears in Public Places—is luminous as the practical Elmire. Fans of the playwright will enjoy the many references to his works, but anyone who enjoys a good comic romp should also find much to love in this splendid French import. —K.K.

The Ten

The title The Ten refers to the Ten Commandments, all spoofed here in episodes such as “Thou Shall Not Steal,” featuring Winona Ryder—of course.

Each vignette is introduced by Paul Rudd in a series of mostly dumb segments—save one episode featuring him reuniting with his ex-wife (Famke Janssen), which has some amusing moments.

This crude (though the makers would call it irreverent) comedy, written by director David Wain and actor Ken Marino (of The State fame), is so uneven it could be renamed “The Four” since there are more misses than hits. The film begins promisingly enough with a satiric jab at the media after a skydiver stuck in the ground up to his armpits gets his own catch phrase and a TV series. However, like most of the episodes, it soon wears out its welcome, despite setting up characters and plots that will later be developed elsewhere.

The humor is mostly scattershot as well. There is a great, tasteless sight gag involving a one-legged man, but then there is Ryder talking dirty to a ventriloquist dummy in a scene that is more painful than sidesplitting. A very funny courtroom scene featuring a sarcastic judge precedes an endless, obvious joke about male “ass-rape” in prison.

Alas, too many of the gags in The Ten lack payoff. Wain deserves credit for including a segment in which a whole room full of straight men get naked and hang out together listening to Roberta Flack. But his biggest sin in this scene is that hunky Bobby Cannavale is seen nude only from the waist up.

And herein lies the trouble with The Ten. The sketches are good on paper, but the execution is only so-so. Curiously, the best vignette in The Ten is the sole animated one—a story about a lying rhino, (“Thou Shall Not Bear False Witness”). This sequence not only gets its message across clearly, but it also has a great shit joke. — Gary Kramer