Review: Living Large handles body image issues with care

So often in media, fat characters are dehumanized in various ways. They're objects of ridicule, comedic relief, trusty sidekicks, sex-less scenery. In recent years, I think there's been a lot of progress. More fat characters who get to be people, have rich interior lives, be messy and complicated and sexy and everything else. I don't know that it's yet the norm, but we're moving in the right direction. 

Kristina Dufková's charming stop-motion Living Large, based on Mikaël Ollivier's novel La vie, en gros, treats its protagonist, Ben Pipetka, with care, nuance, and empathy. He's dealing with the bodily changes of puberty, which in his case, have brought a lot of weight gain. He's a fat kid, and that comes with a lot of baggage: health concerns from the school nurse, encouragement to diet from his parents, and bullying at school. 

But Ben is so much more than his fatness. He's such a well-rounded character: talented, well-liked, and pretty confident. He's in a band, the lead singer. He's a talented chef, whipping up pizza and burgers and even his grandmother's famous pavlova cake. He has a lot of friends and makes his classmates laugh with his quick wit. He has to put up with lot of bullshit -- personal, societal, etc. -- but he holds it together. He's a cool guy. The Whale, this is not.

The movie doesn't shy away from Ben's struggles with his body, though. But before it zeroes in on them (and they are largely the focus of the film -- I mean, look at the title), it gives us a more detailed sense of him. We get to know him for who he is before we start focusing on what he is: someone who's trying to live healthier and lose some weight, mostly to try to woo his crush at school (who is, coincidentally, the sister of two of his bullies). His attempts are rendered with realistic starts and stops, ups and downs, highs and lows. Sometimes, the motivation is in full-gear, and he's able to dive into his diet and exercise regimen with gusto. Other days, it's harder, whether it's because he got some bad news or the sweets in the vending machine at school are just looking particularly good that day.

It's a really sweet movie, and packs a lot of story into its slim runtime (only 78 minutes). The film juggles the various concerns of Ben's life well, intertwining them deftly. It all feels pretty natural, flowing easily, watchably. 

The animation is fantastic. I'm probably a bit biased, because I love watching stop-motion/claymation movies more than any other kind of animation. I think part of it is the simple truth of how difficult and pain-staking the process is. It feels like the truest kind of movie magic to me, watching these characters come to life in this way.

And these characters are really fun to watch, really fun to just look at, even. The designs are so fun and strange, every character looking like a caricature come to life. Lots of elongated faces and off proportions, sunken eyes and colorful hairdos. Some of my favorites are the adult characters who exist on the periphery of the story: the saggy-boobed school nurse, the impossibly long-armed gym teacher (another bully in the story), the brawny cafeteria lady who ably breaks up a fight. I also really loved the aerial shots -- I'm a sucker for tiny cars tooting along in stop-motion. And the animals! Ben's mom is a vet, and they have a veritable zoo at home, including an adorable (kind of scary) monkey. The animals are all special little angels.

There are a few musical moments throughout the film, mostly pretty simple songs that sound like the kind of thing a high schooler would come up with to narrate their day. Pretty catchy and fun, nothing that stands out too much. But the film ends at the school's Christmas concert, where Ben and his band perform a full-fledged song that goes pretty hard. It was a definite highlight of the film, especially with basically every supporting character popping up in the audience. 

Also worth mentioning on the aural front: the English voice cast is really solid. I always prefer to watch movies (even animated ones) in their original language, but in this case, that wasn't an option. And I didn't mind at all. In fact, the dub was so good, part of me was wondering if this was an English-language movie from the get-go. (It's not; it's Czech).

Living Large has been releasing in some other countries, including its native Czech Republic and (soon) Russia, but as far as I know, it doesn't have American distribution in place yet. I imagine it will find its way here, though. It's a winner.