Empire Waist (2024)

Empire-Waist-(2024)
Empire Waist (2024)

I can only wonder why Empire Waist doesn’t focus more on intersectionality, considering the empowerment that this film offers to plus size students everywhere. What brings more wonder is how Missi Pyle and Rainn Wilson, very doting parents to a very motivated plus size student, aren’t portrayed in more movies considering there is nothing close to that type of character in modern media. With that said, intersectionality is indeed still lacking. 

The movie is written by Claire Ayoub of the Upright Citizens Brigade, and the movie revolves around Lenore played by Mia Kaplan, a quiet high school girl who has somewhat of an unhealthy obsession with everything Black. With an athletic mother who doesn’t push her daughter too hard along with a buy yet supportive father, Lenore finds the perfect disguise to hide her dreams of becoming a fashionista. Her affection for black goes as far as her clothes because her vibrant dresses are stored far away in her closet, never to be worn again. Eventually, during a side called science in the game, she is paired with a girl, who happens to be a Karaoke fan called Kayla. However, This time the goal is different to use her skills in the national competition.

Not at all surprised, sadly, Tina casts only for an unbridled murderous rivalry on the screen. For Lenore, there are no differences between women, and over time owing to her sewing skills, she eventually begins creating clothing for other school-time outcasts even the ones that are not seen in the fashion world (Tina plays Klutzy who is tall approximately her age adorable while Marcy as Daisy Washington, an intellectuals wheelchair activist, and Kassandra Tellez as Diamond a skinny genius ideas activist with a rebellious streak) A round the girls are trying to help Lenore enter into business, but Sylvie is always there at every point watching ready to steal the spotlight. 

But certainly, it’s sweet, and rather surprisingly so the film very much. Its target audience in this case is not only responsible for doing an age appropriate camo with good execution but also having such an incredible creative vision in bottoms and furs. To add on Rainn Wilson is very funny as Lenore’s bumbling dad and Mann works well with Missi Pyle who was never loving and kind, though we have seen better performances from her than ever before. I do not think that an empire waist looks worn out on Kelsey and Lenore as the girl’s and mother’s relationships they portray are said to be headstrong and sweet, but not exactly ideal. 

Dramatic scenes can sometimes become over the top, and these are some aspects of their underrepresentation that deserve some second thought. In particular, we are first confronted with a key trans character in her introduction: she is seated in a rubbish bin.

Kayla, most of the time, seems to fit the idea of a plus-size sassier best friend and while there is a backstory for her character, it isn’t all that fleshed out. Similarly, the character development arcs and growth of the characters Marcy and Diamond are deeply lacking in detail.

Let me reiterate, similar to her other ‘H’wood peers, she remains a tad lazy in the sense all of them seem to fit into the same stereotype of the plus size without nuance, which is just following the basic off the shelf tropes. The film itself had no in depth story for Ayoub and they also knew the target audience, so no reasoning for an depth story was adhered to. In just one of the numerous scenes, comments targeted to the character of Lenore are childlike and immature, but these are countered by adult comments aimed at searching for ‘male attention’.

This movie had all the potential in the world, and I’m positive that with a purposeful direction and properly constructed dialogues, this could be one great movie for the current generation of girls, something along the lines of Moxie or Dumplin’.

Empire Waist manages to be a fun movie regardless of its faults and it earns the praise it receives.

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