It has plus size ambitions but Double XL, directed by Satramm Ramani, lacks the wherewithal to measure up to the demands of its weighty theme. All flab and fluff and not much fun, the film never gets its punches right, what with the actors screaming their lungs out at the slightest provocation and still failing to make their point.
Double XL, with its one-size-fits-all approach, translates into more than just double trouble. It makes a terrible hash of a story of two victims of body-shaming who learn to take all swipes on the chin and fight on to prove to the world that the clothes that fit them do not define who they are.
It wants to make a lofty statement. All it manages to be is a flimsy 130-minute film that says what it has to all within the first ten minutes. The rest is mere padding.
Double XL, written by Mudassar Aziz and Sasha Singh, wades through loads of banality. With the writing all over the place, the two principal characters, played by Sonakshi Sinha and Huma Qureshi, reduced to perpetuating frogmarching stereotypes rather than being allowed to create real, empathetic portraits of women of substance.