Last night I was lucky enough to attend a Q&A with Brittany Runs a Marathon director, Paul Downs Colaizzo, and star of the movie, Jillian Bell. This was the first time I’ve attended anything like it, and it was great, to watch a movie and have the director explain his intentions and how the movie came to be. Fortunately for myself and the audience I was with, Brittany Runs a Marathon is brilliant, so sitting through everything Colaizzo had to say was a real treat. The movie is about a young woman in her mid-20s who realises her life has stalled; she’s overweight, she parties all the time and her career prospects have dried up. The doctor tells her she must lose ‘the weight of a Siberian Husky’ to be healthy again. Brittany starts to run, and eventually decides she wants to participate in the New York marathon. Her whole life transforms due to exercise, and self-belief. Brittany is played by Jillian Bell, and although Bell is primarily known for her comedic roles, she puts everything into Brittany and gives a terrifically passionate performance.
One of the things director Paul Downs Colaizzo said about his movie is that he likened Brittany’s transformation from fat friend to healthy gal much like his own experience coming out as gay – Brittany is reinventing herself; her image is changing. I found that an interesting way to think about it. Colaizzo was also complimented for getting into the female psyche when writing for Brittany, but I found it completely relatable myself. As a man, I’ve struggled with being overweight and the pressures put on myself worrying what other people are thinking of me as I exercise. This movie seems to depict all the worries. I love when Brittany is dressed to run, standing at the bottom of her apartment steps just terrified to open the door and begin. That’s me, I’ve been there. I love this one shot where the camera elongates the street to give us Brittany’s perspective of how daunting it seems to run one block. Colaizzo detailed how he set out to make a movie where we were rooting for the fat side-kick character that’s usually put down in movies, but I never saw her as anything other than a person, probably because I found her so relatable.
More than running, this movie also challenges Brittany on the behaviours that led her to being an unhealthy weight to begin with. She is closed off to people and she uses food as a coping mechanism. Again personally, I don’t drink excessively, smoke or do drugs, but food can be a big coping mechanism for me. And unhealthy food is everywhere; you don’t get cut off from McDonald’s if you’ve ordered too many burgers for the week, like you do, drinking excessively at a bar on a Friday night. Just the image of Brittney picking cheese off a chip wrapper that she’s already thrown in the bin is haunting. She embarrassingly picks like a homeless person because she realises she’ll be left with her feelings after she stops eating. It’s all too real. Brittany also uses a British-accent voice at times when she’s feeling self-conscious, to shield her true feelings, which I thought was a worthy subtle touch of characterisation.
But there’s no need to get down because Brittany Runs a Marathon is also incredibly funny. The movie finds humour in human moments, conversations between the characters, and not bombastic setups. I doubt you’d cast Jillian Bell and not expect something funny, but often when a comedic actor needs to be taken seriously for the majority of the movie, there will be a few opening scenes where the actor is allowed to be funny just to give the audience a little of what they’re familiar with, and it doesn’t always land. Here, the writing is sharp and the funnies continue the whole way through. This is helped a lot by the supporting cast, as well as Bell. The supporting cast consists of Micah Stock, Michaela Watkins and Utkarsh Ambudkar, to name a few, and they form Brittany’s group of supportive friends after her roommate, played by Alice Lee, shows her true colours. Lil Rel Howery plays Demetrius, Brittany’s very supportive brother-in-law. Throughout the entire movie, you just want Brittany to succeed! She is shown to be creative, charismatic and down on her potential. Brittany Runs a Marathon is inspired by a true story, with a true Brittany, and we see actual footage of her running the marathon at the end of the film.
The movie does follow a generic arch with everything falling apart right before the climax, but I choose to view it as the director wanting to show us everything that can go wrong for a fat person going on this positive trajectory, more than all that did go wrong for Brittany, derailing her process – she has a fallout with her friends and boyfriend, she’s not seeing the kilos fall off in the same way she did before, she gets a stress fracture in her ankle, and she loses her job and living arrangements; if all that actually happened to Brittany in the same week, then boy, she did have a rough time of it, and sometimes life is stranger than fiction. She briefly moves back home to live with Demetrius, where we meet a lady, very late in the movie, who leaves a gigantic impression, about overweight people, and our attitude towards them.
I love this movie. And what I love most about it is how it details so many of the triumphs and tribulations that come with going on a weight loss journey – everyone knows the basic ones, like your old clothes fit loose now, but there are social ones that often get ignored, like how men now hold doors for Brittany and are generally nicer to be around now that they see her as attractive. This movie is charming and incredibly inspirational. I may have latched into it due to my own weight struggles, but there was a skinny woman sitting in the row next to me getting emotional as well, so I do think Brittany Runs a Marathon will prove highly relatable. It was great to greet some Hollywood types in Melbourne; thanks to my local cinema for hosting the event for a truly powerful film.
5.0
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