MOVIE REVIEW: Norbit is Intelligent, Insightful Documentary on How to Deal with the Unwanted Love of a Fat Person

It is one of the great problems of our time: What do you do when a fat person loves you? Well of course you try to get out of it. But how? This is where "Norbit" provides a valuable service.

Eddie Murphy plays Norbit, a single skinny man who is minding his own business when he is victimized by the love of the obese Rasputia (Eddie Murphy). Unless there is another Eddie Murphy I don't know about, this Eddie Murphy does a masterful job playing both characters. Reportedly he did not even wear a fat suit to play Rasputia. Demonstrating an enormous commitment to the craft of acting, he would gain and lose 200 pounds in between each scene by binging on Roy Rogers. The movie does not address whether making love to oneself as another counts as sex or masturbation. This reviewer is still torn.

But back to how horrible it is when a fat person loves you. Instead of playing Rasputia as a stereotypically intelligent, articulate Black woman, Murphy surprises us with an unbridled display of finger-wagging and sass. Rasputia comes to life as our worst nightmare: an overweight person who believes she deserves to be happy with her husband. Just when it seems Murphy is hopelessly trapped by Rasputia's disgusting affection, he meets Kate, who mercifully isn't fat. I won't spoil the ending except to say that Norbit ends up with Kate.

"Norbit" is a unique work of art, on par with other American masterpieces such as "Soul Plane." Eddie Murphy goes for drama instead of cheap laughs. In fact, Murphy is such a great actor, we don't laugh even once, but instead cringe at how horrible it is when a fat person deigns to think of themselves as a human being worthy of any esteem whatsoever.

Go see "Norbit," and find out why the Seattle Post-Intelligencer raves, "a strange, toneless collection of fat jokes, fart jokes and foul sex gags," and the San Diego Union Tribune heralds, "...the assassination of comedy!!"