(2010) Like a documentary of addiction, director/producer Matthew Bonifacio's indie drama of a man lost in his waist land - co-written with Carmine Famiglietti, who has the role of Neil Perota, with a fine cast of unknowns - opens and concludes with a compulsive-eaters' group meeting.

Living in an Italian neighborhood in Queens, Neil, who weighs over 300 pounds and works for his dad driving a school bus, suffers a heart attack, requiring a coronary angioplasty, and gets fired because he was driving with kids on the bus at the time. His sister Theresa's wedding is postponed while he's in the hospital.

On doctor's orders, Neil begins a stringent low-calorie, low-carbohydrate diet, but he's soon scarfing down pizzas at Vitto's pizzeria on the sly and using his best friend Sacco Valenzia (Michael Aronov) to sneak treats into the house past his parents. "He's cheatin'," says his future brother-in-law Anthony Lanzo (Lou Martini Jr), who after shouting insults and obscenities nearly gets into a brawl with Neil on the wedding day, raining pouring down on the backyard-barbeque nuptials.

Embarrassed and disgusted with himself, Neil drives his dad's SUV north to get away from the temptations of the city for "a change of scenery" where he finds and buys an out-of-the-way piece of property with an old trailer in the woods in Schoharie County.

Sacco, addicted to drugs, comes up, promising to stay a few weeks to get clean and provide moral support; instead, both suffering withdrawal symptoms, the pals soon get into a fight, arguing over whose addiction is worse.

After Neil pigs out once more and Sacco departs, driving back with the SUV but keeping his word not to tell Neil's parents where he's holed up, leaving behind his vehicle, Neil purchases a bicycle and a CB radio from Laura Griffin (Miriam Shor) at her yard sale in preparation for a divorce from her husband Barry. She pays him a visit at his trailer, bringing the antenna he'd forgot, then offering to take him fishing and sex.

Never before having been with a woman and confused by her attitude afterward ("I'm never going to be your girlfriend"), Neil misunderstands the arrangement: "You know, it can get really lonely up here." By himself without a tv or other distractions - other than occasionally chatting by CB with Lee Dawkins (Eric Al Leffler), a neighborly real-estate agent - he gets serious with bicycling, walking, chopping wood, and eating healthy salads and vegetables.

Back in Queens his father Lou (Fil Formicola) and mother Connie (Susan Varon), thinking that even a mother with a son in prison at least knows where he is, worry about him.

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Copyright © 2011 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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