Everyone knows fat people are comediennes, everyone's best friend and yet underneath are very sad people and losers in life when it comes to finding love, let alone sex, right? All they have to do is lose weight and everything goes their way with finances, sex, love and life! What is so maddening about "Brittany Runs A Marathon" is that the director-screenwriter is that basing the story on his own real life best friend he misses many opportunities, going for easy laughs in the beginning and then drama in the second half not doing justice to Brittany or all the fat people who will see this.
Brittany moved to New York from Philadelphia to get into advertising but instead finds herself working in a small off-off Broadway theatre, singing and making quips to the customers as they come into to see a show and barely makes a living having to share a small walk-up apartment with, of course, a skinny roommate. Living above her is a divorcee who is into running, who is skinny of course, as are the gay guy (and his husband) she becomes friends with through her--surprise--wanting to lose weight and run in the New York marathon. Later, through some convoluted manipulation of the screenplay, she is living in luxury with a male roommate who, by the way is very skinny.
Just as an aside I can only recall 2 fat people in the movie one being her brother-in-law aka as her stepfather--yeah go figure that one out--and a very obese woman the mirror image of Brittany.
As a fat person I felt some empathy for Brittany and did laugh at some of the things she said and did but I, also, felt some anger at the things skipped over to go from a comedy to a drama. Though the film doesn't quite give you the feeling that "Rocky" did, which was filmed in Philadelphia by the way, you might shed a tear on the way getting to the end.
The cast is quite superior to the screenplay with Jillian Bell as Brittany, Michaela Watkins as the divorcee, Micah Stock as the gay guy, Utkarsh Ambudkar as the male roommate, Lil Rel Howery as the brother-in-law and Alice Lee as the first roommate.
"Brittany Runs A Marathon" did show me the New York 26+ mile marathon route which I had never known or seen before though during the rest of the movie I wasn't quite sure where the film was taking place whether it was Manhattan, Queens or Brooklyn though the scenes in Philadelphia were well identified.
Would I, do I recommend the film? Let me just say that the thin people in the audience--about 3 of them--laughed more than the 5-6 fat people who were there.
Paul Downs Colaizzo owes his friend an apology in the way he presents her as a two dimensional woman instead of the 3 dimensional woman she probably is in real life.
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Everyone knows fat people are comediennes, everyone's best friend and yet underneath are very sad people and losers in life when it comes to finding love, let alone sex, right? All they have to do is lose weight and everything goes their way with finances, sex, love and life! What is so maddening about "Brittany Runs A Marathon" is that the director-screenwriter is that basing the story on his own real life best friend he misses many opportunities, going for easy laughs in the beginning and then drama in the second half not doing justice to Brittany or all the fat people who will see this.
Brittany moved to New York from Philadelphia to get into advertising but instead finds herself working in a small off-off Broadway theatre, singing and making quips to the customers as they come into to see a show and barely makes a living having to share a small walk-up apartment with, of course, a skinny roommate. Living above her is a divorcee who is into running, who is skinny of course, as are the gay guy (and his husband) she becomes friends with through her--surprise--wanting to lose weight and run in the New York marathon. Later, through some convoluted manipulation of the screenplay, she is living in luxury with a male roommate who, by the way is very skinny.
Just as an aside I can only recall 2 fat people in the movie one being her brother-in-law aka as her stepfather--yeah go figure that one out--and a very obese woman the mirror image of Brittany.
As a fat person I felt some empathy for Brittany and did laugh at some of the things she said and did but I, also, felt some anger at the things skipped over to go from a comedy to a drama. Though the film doesn't quite give you the feeling that "Rocky" did, which was filmed in Philadelphia by the way, you might shed a tear on the way getting to the end.
The cast is quite superior to the screenplay with Jillian Bell as Brittany, Michaela Watkins as the divorcee, Micah Stock as the gay guy, Utkarsh Ambudkar as the male roommate, Lil Rel Howery as the brother-in-law and Alice Lee as the first roommate.
"Brittany Runs A Marathon" did show me the New York 26+ mile marathon route which I had never known or seen before though during the rest of the movie I wasn't quite sure where the film was taking place whether it was Manhattan, Queens or Brooklyn though the scenes in Philadelphia were well identified.
Would I, do I recommend the film? Let me just say that the thin people in the audience--about 3 of them--laughed more than the 5-6 fat people who were there.
Paul Downs Colaizzo owes his friend an apology in the way he presents her as a two dimensional woman instead of the 3 dimensional woman she probably is in real life.
