Ha'Kha'ver Ha'Sha'men Shelli

Just a sweet movie that flows beautifully, transitioning between the times Elik and her "fat friend" Jimmy keep meeting up, kinda "When Harry Met Sally" style, but without kitsch.

I do not watch romcoms or romances. This is not a romcom. I'd call it a platonic potentially romantic movie. It's not romantic but rather gritty and realstic and honest. The acting is wonderful. I watch all Israeli movies, yet this is my first time seeing these actors, Tsachi Sadan and Meyran Menkes. Troughout the movie ya kinda want to see Tsachi slim down. I think Elik is also alays hoping because she likes him so profoundly and can't get past what she kindly tells him is "his protective gear" (i.e. The blubber). The name of the movie in Hebrew is "My Fat Friend" or "My Fat Boyfriend." The dialogue is honest and entertaining, also not cutesy or over-sentimental.

At first Jimmy seems like a blubbery zhglub, a nebbishy nerd. But within his first conversations with Elik, he shows a sharp sense of humore and a keeness for honesty and openness. And I just love that he's not shy. He's always suggesting he and she go eat junky food. When she asks him where he gets any nutrition from, if he takes vitamins, in a heartbeat he says his favorite vitamin "pill" is M&M's. He's simply adorable and lovable without being at all nerdy. Elik's cool, "the class queen." Both characters are self-confident and unapologic for who they are, and confident in their friendship.

The English name of the movie "The Fat Guy" is so not appropriate. It's not a movie about a fat guy. It's a movie about true friendship, potential love, a roadmap to love, and our societal mental block about fat prejudice. The characters go in and out of "fat" being and issue and not being an issue. What's the final verdict going to be?

It's a lovely watch. Worthwhile, excellent acting and very well co-written by Liat Elkayam and life partner Gudis Schneider who also directed the film.

This is a modern Israeli movie, some of the women are quite tattooed. It is in Hebrew with English subtitles. The two main characters meet in the army on a field task that they have to co-operate on, he hesitatingly suggests the possibility of a date, she says no. They meet again in Tel Aviv from time to time over the next few years. She is an apparently successful young hi-tech worker, he is an idle overweight layabout. She turns down his offers of a date a couple of times, but she clearly has a fondness for him, but she has avoided emotional closeness, though we don't know why. She is very attractive, has no shortage of short term sexual partners, he has very little. It is a romantic comedy with an underlying serious tone about avoidance, so the ending is predictable, the fun is getting there, and each having to overcome a very big personal stumbling block. It is modern day secular Tel Aviv with its bars and night life, there is nothing particularly Jewish in it, the acting is very good, she is wonderful as the beautiful 'cold fish', he excellent as the angry self-defeating apparently funny but really deeply sad loser who tries to attack her character of avoidance which leads her to confront him with his immaturity, and how they both have to radically change if they want to improve.

Ok so if 'When Harry Met Sally' had a mentally disturbed ugly cousin, and that cousin ran away from home, got hooked on meth, joined a cult, married a horse, fell off a ladder while working on the roof of the horse's barn, was rushed into hospital where they accidentally gave him a pre-frontal lobotomy, and he then became the mayor of Tel Aviv, this would be that film.

The makers of this film, who essentially just shamefully took the script from 'When Harry Met Sally' and ran it through ChatGPT asking for some minor adjustments, had something with potential but decided to cross the line from charming and sophisticated to cliche and unbelievable.

The leading (or supporting - who knows) character, Jimmy, on top of being obese (not just overweight), is an unambiguous lazy pot head who desperately wants to be loved, and happens to read books (which you can easily do when you have infinite time), while the gorgeous leading (or supporting - who knows) female character who struggles to find a man, is a sharp, successful, book lover, who, we are meant to believe, is destined to end up with the guy. It all just doesn't gel well enough because the details on screen don't support the idea due to a lack of character building and an unbelievable plot.

Takes place mostly in Tel Aviv, where it sometimes seems determined to show us a different attractive landmark in every scene. (I'm convinced. Tel Aviv is a nice place to visit.)

But the movie starts in the desert, where a boy soldier and girl soldier have been assigned to a brief spell of duty together far from everyone else and feel a tiny bit of mutual interest. By grim coincidence, the movie was released not long after an Israeli boy soldier and girl soldier on duty together at an isolated position were killed and some folks started wondering whether the army could be pairing soldiers who could distract one another.

Be that as it may, these are the movie's main characters (the other characters are ciphers) and what happens to them is not far from what any romcom audience would expect. "The Fat Guy" (Netflix calls it "Elik & Jimmy") does deserve credit for taking both the guy and the girl seriously-- neither is just a prop, and the male lead chalked up a Best Actor award at a local film festival although this is his first movie.

And everything is pleasant to watch.

"Elik and Jimmy" attempts a throwback to an earlier era of cinema but fails to deliver a compelling experience. The pacing is notably slow, often leaving the viewer waiting for a point or climax that never materializes. This sluggish tempo makes the film struggle to maintain engagement, as scenes drift without clear purpose. Compounding this issue is the soundtrack, which feels surprisingly disconnected from the movie. Instead of enriching the story or setting the mood, the music choices seem out of sync with the visual narrative, creating a jarring contrast. Given these shortcomings, "Elik and Jimmy" falls short of expectations, and I find it difficult to recommend for audiences seeking a well-rounded cinematic experience.