The new film Brittany Runs a Marathon has to do with a female who loses weight and discovers joy. In a period in which body-positivity activists have actually been working hard to assist females uncouple their sense of self-regard from the numbers on a scale, that's one controversial plot.

It's also an over-simplification of the movie, which is conscious of the threats of fat phobia and body-shaming. Writer-director Paul Downs Collazio includes scenes and dialogue plainly indicated to challenge the idea that females have to shed pounds in order to discover love and success. That the film's lead character end up following that trajectory anyway isn't so much an indictment of Brittany Runs a Marathon as it is an indicator of simply how challenging it is to navigate the political and personal 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 dissatisfied with her life. Brittany, played 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 roommate, a self-centered Instagram influencer. (Is there any other kind?).

Like so lots of people who deal with insecurities, Brittany cracks jokes at her own expenditure so that others do not get there first.

Brittany is outwardly cheerful and energetic, and good friends inform her that she's the funniest individual they understand. But Bell's subtle cues-- a flinch after her roommate's callous comment, a flash of vulnerability in her eyes when a person flirting with her at a bar turns lewd-- let the audience understand that Brittany's humor is a type of self-defense. Like so lots of individuals who deal with insecurities, Brittany cracks jokes at her own expenditure so that others do not arrive initially.

When she pays a see to the medical professional in an effort to get an illegal Adderall prescription, Brittany's weight emerges as a central plot point. Rather, the doctor declares that he's anxious about her BMI (an oft-criticized measure of health, for what it's worth), in addition to her hypertension and elevated resting heart rate. He advises her to lose in between 45 and 55 pounds. "That's the weight of a Siberian husky," Brittany notes wryly. "You want me to pull a medium-sized working canine off of my body.".

The movie takes care to have the medical professional acknowledge that some individuals are fat because of genetics or thyroid concerns, which it's possible to be both healthy and fat. Brittany, however, hasn't been focusing on nutrition and workout. And so, with genuine, relatable fear-- exercising in public can be frightening, especially when you have a body that tends to be the target of examination and criticism-- Brittany starts running.

From the minute Brittany's tennis shoes first touch the pavement, great things happen. She signs up with a running group, where she finds buddies who in fact care about her. They decide to train for the New York City marathon together, a goal that ends up being significantly meaningful to Brittany as a symbol of her capability to take control of her life. Since she's got to awaken early for runs, she cuts down on the drinking and begins getting more sleep. And to make more money for cross-training at the fitness center and other marathon-related costs, Brittany gets a house-sitting gig-- which leads her to a man she's first exacerbated by and after that, undoubtedly, drew in to, a directionless charmer named Jern (Utkarsh Ambudkar).

Workout makes our heroine feel more powerful, healthier, and more optimistic: So far, so uncontroversial. However Brittany also becomes visibly slimmer over the course of the movie, which features a repeating theme in which her bare feet appear on a digital scale with numbers heading ever-closer to her goal weight. (Bell trained for a marathon in order to prepare for the role, and lost 40 pounds herself while doing so; she used prosthetics for Brittany's earlier scenes.).

The camera likewise appears to advise us to scan Brittany's body for defects because we're seeing Brittany through her own unforgiving eyes.

In some scenes, Brittany stares in a state of peaceful, pleased shock at the image of herself in a top that's now too large for her, extending the extra 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 with her chin tilted to the side, taking selfies of her recently transformed jawline.