Fatso

Empty

I'm surprised that Fatso is such a joyless movie. There is room for a lot more humor in the premise of trying to lose weight in spite of a food-centric lifestyle. The first few minutes, showing the protagonist's descent into obesity and his behavior as an adult, are funny and accurate. Unfortunately, the movie pokes fun less at the culture that demands thinness and more at those who are unable to achieve it. I'm not sure what the late 1970s had to offer in the way of pseudoscientific diet fads, but I imagine them to be fairly outrageous. Fatso bypasses them completely, instead savaging the members of an organization based on support groups. Maybe writer-director-actress Anne Bancroft, Mrs. Robinson herself, didn't really know much about weight loss and stuck to writing a fairly tame romance with a few fat jokes. I am unamused. It's good that Dom DeLuise can make light of his body, but this is not a movie that makes it worthwhile for him to have done so.