Can you be body-positive and want to lose weight?

The brand-new film Brittany Runs a Marathon has to do with a lady who loses weight and finds happiness. In an era in which body-positivity activists have actually been striving to help ladies uncouple their sense of self-respect from the numbers on a scale, that's one controversial plot.

It's also an over-simplification of the motion picture, which is mindful of the risks of fat fear and body-shaming. Writer-director Paul Downs Collazio includes scenes and discussion clearly meant to challenge the concept that women have to shed pounds in order to discover love and success. That the film's lead character end up following that trajectory anyhow isn't a lot an indictment of Brittany Runs a Marathon as it is a sign of just how difficult it is to navigate the individual and political topic of weight-loss.

At the motion picture's start, Brittany's problem isn't that she's unhappy with her weight specifically; she's unhappy with her life. Brittany, had fun with empathy and wit by Jillian Bell, is a 27-year-old working at a low-paying, dead-end job at a theater. Her social life is a string of late nights and heavy drinking with her New York City roomie, a self-indulgent Instagram influencer. (Is there any other kind?).

Like so many individuals who have problem with insecurities, Brittany fractures jokes at her own expense so that others don't arrive first.

Brittany is outwardly joyful and lively, and buddies inform her that she's the funniest person they understand. But Bell's subtle hints-- a flinch after her roommate's callous comment, a flash of vulnerability in her eyes when a man flirting with her at a bar turns raunchy-- let the audience know that Brittany's humor is a kind of self-defense. Like so lots of individuals who have a hard time with insecurities, Brittany fractures jokes at her own expenditure so that others don't arrive first.

When she pays a see to the physician in an effort to get an illicit Adderall prescription, Brittany's weight emerges as a central plot point. Instead, the medical professional states that he's concerned about her BMI (an oft-criticized step of health, for what it's worth), along with her high blood pressure and raised resting heart rate. He instructs her to lose between 45 and 55 pounds. "That's the weight of a Siberian husky," Brittany keeps in mind wryly. "You desire me to pull a medium-sized working pet off of my body.".

The motion picture is careful to have the doctor acknowledge that some individuals are fat because of genes or thyroid issues, and that it's possible to be both fat and healthy. Brittany, however, hasn't been prioritizing nutrition and workout. And so, with authentic, relatable fear-- exercising in public can be intimidating, especially when you have a body that tends to be the target of examination and criticism-- Brittany begins running.

From the moment Brittany's tennis shoes first touch the pavement, advantages occur. She signs up with a running group, where she finds buddies who actually care about her. They choose to train for the New York City marathon together, a goal that ends up being significantly significant to Brittany as a sign of her ability to take control of her life. Given that she's got to get up early for runs, she cuts back on the drinking and begins getting more sleep. And to earn more money for cross-training at the gym and other marathon-related costs, Brittany gets a house-sitting gig-- which leads her to a person she's very first intensified by and after that, inevitably, attracted to, a directionless charmer called Jern (Utkarsh Ambudkar).

Workout makes our heroine feel stronger, healthier, and more positive: So far, so uncontroversial. However Brittany likewise ends up being visibly slimmer throughout the movie, which includes a repeating motif in which her bare feet appear on a digital scale with numbers heading ever-closer to her objective weight. (Bell trained for a marathon in order to prepare for the role, and lost 40 pounds herself in the process; she used prosthetics for Brittany's earlier scenes.).

The electronic camera also seems to advise us to scan Brittany's body for defects due to the fact that we're seeing Brittany through her own unforgiving eyes.

In some scenes, Brittany looks in a state of peaceful, happy shock at the image of herself in a top that's now too large for her, stretching out the additional material. In others, she drops the laundry she's holding to look at her mostly-naked body in the mirror, or beings in front of her laptop computer with her chin tilted to the side, taking selfies of her recently modified jawline.