SAN FRANCISCO JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL | SFJFF 2010

Poor Herzl is a big fish out of water. A 340-pound chef living with his mother, he’s been gamely diving into a sea of perpetual diet groups and fitness regimes, and belly flopping. He’s fired from a restaurant salad bar because of his “unpresentable” image; then his rigid weight-loss class dumps him because he keeps gaining pounds instead of shedding them. The relentless pursuit of slim is frustrating for him and for his three seriously overweight buddies in the working-class town of Ramle, Israel. But all that starts to change when Herzl discovers the one place where fat guys can be rock stars: the world of sumo wrestling.

In this endearing and poignant comedy, co-directors Sharon Maymon and Erez Tadmor (co-director of SFJFF 2008’s Opening Night film Strangers) find both wit and soul in their four big guys’ efforts to master an ancient sport and accept themselves for the (large) people they are. With echoes of The Full Monty in both its blue-collar setting and its themes, A Matter of Size follows its own tender and funny (and Jewish) path from body shame to body celebration, and from loneliness to love. The unlikely sport Herzl encourages his skeptical friends to take up (“two fatsos in diapers with girly hairdos,” snorts one) turns out to have life lessons far beyond the ring and is rich fodder for visual antics: you won’t soon forget veteran cinematographer David Gurfinkel’s gorgeous long shot of the men pounding through green fields clad only in bright red loincloths. But the humor of the film is never at the expense of these likeable, flawed guys and the women who put up with (and feed) them. Inside this funny movie beats a plus-size heart.
—Peter L. Stein

Directors in person at the Castro.

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