Oct 4, 2013

Big Fan

Saw Big Fan. A very dramatic movie about fandom. It revolves around a Marty-esque loser played by a never-shlubbier Patton Oswalt. He plays a fanatical NY Giants fan. That team is his one ray of sunshine in his depressing life, living with his shrill mother and working a dead-end, minimum wage job. His small-time lawyer brother owns a colossal house and a spray-tanned wife with tits out to there, his boring but kind sister works as a dental assistant and offers to help find Patton a job, which he interprets as charity and grumpily rebuffs her. He is a man who has painted himself into a corner. His fandom acts as a cage, protecting him from the sadness of life, but also stifling his growth. Much of his life is spent on insisting that he's happy.

One day he spots the power-house quarterback of the Giants in a parking lot, follows him, unwittingly witnesses what is probably a drug deal, follows him further to a strip club, fan-boys all over the quarterback, accidentally lets slip about the maybe-drug deal, and has his ass beat. The quarterback is suspended pending investigation and Patton's family urges him to sue. The papers descend, his brother tries to get him declared mentally incompetent, cops are sniffing around, sport news-casters are talking about him, and without their quarterback the Giants are losing game after game. All of this mounts and mounts up to a climax that is almost hilarious in its melodrama. Still, it's very effective in its mundane, (sometimes literally) kitchen-sink drama.

The final conclusion of the film seems to be that, yes, Patton is an overgrown child. But he is a happy one, or at least believes himself to be. The film argues/hopes that this is the same thing. A deeply sad film, but hopeful in the end.

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