Grossed Out

By RICHARD SCHICKEL

FATSO

Directed and Written

by Anne Bancroft

This is at least an original--the first movie in which the drama derives mainly from an overweight individual's attempts to diet. That point stipulated, however, it's hard to find much else of an encouraging nature to say about Anne Bancroft's debut as a writer and director.

The tone of the picture veers from the grotesque (eating binges whenever Dom DeLuise, as the title heavyweight, becomes anxious or unhappy) to the hysterical (members of his excitably loving Italian family yelling at him whenever he gorges himself). There is also a sentimental love story: the hero falls for a sweet, dumbish blond (Candice Azzara) who runs the gift shop around the corner from his card shop. As for the gags, they are mindlessly farcical: an examination at the diet doctor's features standard jokes about hospital gowns and a nicotine-addicted physician who coughs in the patient's face.

In the end, DeLuise does not visibly lose any poundage. But he does get the girl, which, it seems, helps him learn to like himself a little better--which, it seems, may imply slenderness to come. DeLuise acts his part agreeably, but one never comes to care much about him. Dieting may be a compelling matter for someone trying to lose weight, but it is not ever of much interest to bystanders. DeLuise's character is just a dreary man in a drab milieu. Most of Bancroft's staging seems a desperate attempt to narrow the distance between actor and auditors, but it comes out merely as frenzy. And there are far too many close-ups of the food that keeps tempting her fat friend. --Richard Schickel

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