To Be Fat Like Me

2007 "One thin teen. One fat suit. One shocking exposé."
5.6| 1h29m| NA| en| More Info
Released: 08 January 2007 Released
Producted By: Lifetime
Country: Canada
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

Pretty, popular, and slim high-schooler Aly Schimdt had plans of earning a sports scholarship to college but a knee injury ruins her chances. She decides to enter a documentary contest in the hopes of winning money for college. She believes that overweight people, like her mom and brother, seem to make excuses about how the world perceives them. So Aly decides to attend a rival high school as a heavily overweight person for the documentary, but not change her personality. Aly intends and hopes to prove that personality will outshine physical appearance. But when she's met with ridicule, harassment, and name-calling she begins to see things differently.

Genre

Comedy, TV Movie

Watch Online

To Be Fat Like Me (2007) is currently not available on any services.

Director

Douglas Barr

Production Companies

Lifetime

To Be Fat Like Me Videos and Images
  • Top Credited Cast
  • |
  • Crew

To Be Fat Like Me Audience Reviews

Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable
ScoobyWell Great visuals, story delivers no surprises
CommentsXp Best movie ever!
SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction
mattkratz This movie came across as good. After an injury costs her a chance at an athletic scholarship to college (which she desperately needed), a girl decides to enter a contest to help raise the money and films a documentary on fat students high school;inspired by the book Black Like Me, she disguises herself as a fat girl and goes to summer school and experiences firsthand what it is like to be rejected as a severely overweight person. She thinks that a charming personality will help people look past it, but she is mistaken, as she learns that he previous popularity has spoiled her. Her family's weight problems inspired the project. Despite some flaws, the movie was good, and the girl matures throughout the movie. I recommend it.*** out of ****
alan_holloway_2 This really should not have been as good as ii is. The premise is pretty cool, but it was always going to be an upward struggle against being over sentimental and just plain sappy.Well, "To Be Fat Like Me" manages to avoid most of the clichés with a deft sidestep or two. The main reason is the excellent casting, especially the lead, Kaley Cuoco, who will be the main reason for many people seeking this out. She is spot on for the part, and turns in a great performance, as does everyone around her.We know that fat people can have a hard time, especially in school, and whilst there's no great revelations on this front, the film handles the issue with sensitivity and intelligence, coupled with a first class script. You may have come for the chick from Big bang Theory, but hopefully you will leave with a smile and a few more positive thoughts towards the larger members of our society.
Amanda Dalton In the film To Be Fat like Me, directed by Douglas Barr, high school student Alyson Schimdt (Kaley Cuoco) is injured while competing for a college scholarship in a girls' softball game. She is injured so badly she cannot play for the rest of the season. Instead, she enters into a film contest with her classmate Jamie. In this exposé she tries to find out what it is like to be "fat." She goes to summer school at a different school, wears a fat suit, and does not change her personality or behavior. She also goes into certain social settings like a party, the coffee shop, and a ladies clothing store. Each social outing shows a different side of what it is like to be "fat." After almost all is said and done, she must create an ending for the exposé so she may finally reveal it to everyone and enter it into the competition.There are many messages in the film. Have you ever heard "don't judge a book by its cover"? Well that message is the main theme in this film. It says just because people look different from you that does not give you the right to judge them by what is on the outside. Another message in this film is stereotypes. Alyson (Kaley Cuoco) is a pretty, skinny, and athletic girl; but she is also a very good person. This movie shows that stereotypes are not always right in many cases. This movie also shows that stereotypes can be right. Some of the popular people make fun of her almost to the point of ridiculous. They could have been polite to her. Instead, they decided to live up to the stereotype. They "moo'ed" and called her names instead.The one thing that caught my eye about this film was the fact that she could be skinny one second and "fat" the next. I liked that the exposé was looked at from both views without varying opinion. I was pretty much interested the whole time. The responses she got from people were ridiculous; but very authentic. It's true that people are treated different just by the way they look. That should never be the case. I only disliked one thing about this film: the ending could have been a little better. I won't ruin it though. She just should have revealed herself to a certain group of people in a different way. All in all this was a pretty satisfying movie. I would definitely watch it again.
Cheffie3 What I expected: a pretty jock who judges her mother harshly for being overweight, walks in a fat girls shoes, realizes the internal and external pain of being fat. What I got: a movie that goes in too many directions and ends up no where.On the one hand she is angry with her mom because she had a heart attack (due to being overweight) and the hospital bills took all of her parents savings and left no money for her to go to college. I honestly don't think she would have cared about her mom being fat if there was still money for her to get an education. So her anger had more to do with what she couldn't get, than concern for her mother. On the other hand she has a fat younger brother whom she adores and protects, but doesn't understand why he lets himself get bullied, he tells her what choice does he have being so big, she says it's all in the attitude and how you let people treat you. To win money for school she enters a documentary contest and the subject is that she pretends to be fat, using it as a sociology experiment to see if she would be treated any differently. Well no big surprise that despite being nice to people she gets treated like crap and then befriends a fat girl and a self proclaimed "loser". In the end she still doesn't understand WHY people overeat, or the emotional pain of actually being fat and overeating and she still continues to judge fat people harshly for eating bad foods. So what did she learn about being fat? IMO nothing. A few other side lines, her loser friends, a guy she likes who jokes about a girls mom passing the fat test, i.e. if the mom is fat, dump the girl because she will look just like her mother soon. A father who was passive and it seemed like he wanted to say something important but never does, her not being smart, but being in the fat suit she starts to study and does better in summer school than ever before, the emphasis jocks place on looks and being in good physical condition, but the poor guy gets a headache when she tries to explain what she's going through, that it's better to exist on chemical shakes and veggies, than a balanced diet, etc, etc. I was waiting and hoping for her and her mom to have a real heart to heart and for her to really "get it" but they just sum up their bad relationship in a two minute chat that barely scratches the surface. This could have been SO much more!