BLISS RATING: ★★★★+
“I’ll never understand how someone half my size can manage to make me feel so small.” – Quote from Here The Whole Time
Admittedly, the storyline is formatted in a tropey rom-com pattern but then twists into a surprisingly gentle, honest tale of body dysmorphia. In this case, the issue is a real one as the protagonist is obese. Has been his entire life and suffered through the torment of being teased, tortured, and bullied with the usual derogatory terms for fat people. Now in high school, he has begun to wall himself up emotionally and spends most of his time in his room which provides him with the sanctuary and security he longs for. With few friends, Felipe (Miguel Lallo) is an obese gay teenager who isolates himself, except for seeing his therapist, and interacting with his nurturing and accepting mother, Rita (Debora Falabella). She is his rock.
His quiet recess from school is shattered by an unexpected guest. Once a childhood friend who over the years has grown into an Adonis and is a popular athlete with multiple friends, is now having to spend 15 days with him, as his parents simply do not trust Caio (Diego Lira) to be left alone while they go on vacation. Once friends, Felipe and Caio are now on opposite ends, with Felipe always having a crush on Caio as he is quite handsome and ruggedly built. Thinking he is ‘straight’, Felipe misinterprets many of Caio’s overtures towards him as teasing. In reality, Caio is gay but is not as open or as loud as Felipe is.
Caio has a best friend by the name of Beca (Mika Soeire), who is a stocky Black girl with a rather petite lover by the name of Melissa (Isabella Moreira). As the days pass by, Felipe begins to think that maybe the impossible is possible for him as well. Maybe, just maybe, a fat, neurotic, low-self-esteem gay teenager could have a boyfriend as charming, handsome and dynamic as Caio.
Who really S.T.O.L.E. this movie? Debora Falabella as Ruth, the mother of Felipe, is a standout. She has known and accepted her son’s sexual orientation a long time ago and has been sensitive and understanding about his weight issue. Rather than constantly trying to nag him about his weight, she has accepted it and has chosen the direction to having Felipe see a psychologist to work through his issues and for him to come to his own path of acceptance. She is a prime example of an ideal mother but with a complete sense of reality about the whole environment. Nothing is forced or contrived. She is accepting and loving because that is exactly who she is. She immediately picks up on the sexual tension between Felipe and Caio and when their stealthy relationship becomes a bit rocky, is there to help pick up the pieces. She does so in a nurturing, and as trite as it sounds, a mothering way. Debora plays the role with grace and never turns it into a lark. She is real and is her own person. When she herself is jilted on a date, for example, it felt like it belonged to the story and was part of the story’s theme. And in essence, it was. Her whole persona is one of tolerance, no matter what your status was. A complete and beautiful image of acceptance.
What is unique about this movie is that it treats the world where overweight individuals reside, in a new light. While there is the usual and destructive teasing and bullying and fat-shaming, it also shows that there are individuals who do not ‘see’ that in an individual. What is seen is the intrinsic value of the person behind the façade. Caio could accept Felipe for who he is and frankly never once asked him to lose ‘weight’. He accepted him as is. Even confronting his own parents with the reality that he was gay and Felipe was his lover. Is all that realistic? Honestly, I do not know. But the presentation made it feel so in a genuine, concrete, and authentic way. And brutally honest. Even the love scenes felt sincere and heartfelt.
As much as I wanted to believe this movie, something felt ‘off’ to me. Being the curious soul that I am, I looked up who the protagonists were. And I got my answer. Miguel Lallo as Felipe is obviously ‘padded’ to add extra weight to him. This disappointed me a bit as it would have been more truthful had Felipe been an actual individual who was obese. Honestly, it did look inauthentic to me, and I felt that somehow. The romantic spark between them was due to the fact that the actors both knew that Felipe was not overweight. Did that influence their reactions? I no doubt believe that it did. As the whole set up was fake. In addition, which is a complete pet-peeve of mine, I dislike chronologically individuals in their late teens or early 20’s playing mid-teen characters. It takes away from the authenticity of the whole experience. They have lived through the period they are acting out whereas we should see it more organically. This movie would have worked so much better if they had utilized performers closer to the ages of the supposed protagonists. It just diminished, at least for me, the impact of the story.
Nevertheless, this is a solid story dealing with today’s youth in a unique way. I would hope that we can look past the exterior of an individual and see the real individual. Each of us has flaws. As physically beautiful as Caio is, even he has insecurities and shortcomings that preclude him from being the best possible version of himself. This movie certainly explores each of their vulnerabilities in a way that makes them relatable and literally everyone can find some way to relate to one of the characters in this movie. For that, they deserve our kudos.
Sure, this movie is lighthearted, but its message is as timeless as ever. Bullying, insecurities, anxieties about being gay, and certainly being overweight are never out of favor for subject matters for cruelty. This movie shows how easy it is to become vulnerable to any one of these foibles, if we allow ourselves to become victims. What this movie also showed was a nice way to not become a victim – to believe in yourself.
Anyone who has read my reviews knows I am not enamored with Pollyanna endings but this one I shall make an exception for. It is rare (and honestly, I cannot recall ever seeing one this extensive) where a truly ‘less-than-perfect’ protagonist gets the boyfriend of his dreams. And it is for the right reason. Because Caio genuinely and truly loves him. That is astonishing unique among BLs and one I have not seen before.
Perhaps we can now expand the qualifications of a ‘protagonist’ to truly include individuals who are perceived as less desirable or observed to be so, and make a genuine love story feel warm, genuine, sincere and authentic in cultures that perhaps only perceive BL relationships on physical grandeur.
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