XXL (1997) - film review

Alain Berrebi runs a fashion store in Paris’ Jewish district.  He has big ideas for his business, but these are constantly thwarted by a neighbouring Chinese shop.  He intends to marry Arlette Stern, whose father has just learned that the French peasant who saved him from the Nazis during the war has just died.  At the funeral, Berrebi meets the son of the dead man, Jean Bourdalou, manager of a chain of restaurants.  Berrebi and Bourdalou immediately fall out when the latter starts to have an affair with Arlette…

Although the concept behind XXL is a worthy one – to offer a down-to-Earth portrait of Jewish life in cosmopolitan France – its realisation leaves a great deal to be desired.  Cliché-ridden, poorly paced and almost totally lacking in credible characterisation, the film is burdened with an all-star cast, for which there is no justification other than to try to make the film appeal to as wide an audience as possible.  After 30 minutes of tedium, the film picks up a little, and we do get a few moments of decent comedy, but by this stage you’ve just lost interest in the narrative.  Far from helping us to understand Jewish culture, the film merely alienates its audience and reinforces typical Western prejudices against Jews.  If the film were not so boring and amateurish, it might be misconstrued as dangerously offensive.   Fortunately, the film was so badly distributed when it was released that is passed virtually without notice.

© James Travers 2003

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