Cari (Yelyna De León) has a problem in “20 Pounds to Happiness” and it’s not her weight, despite what she thinks as she dutifully attends support groups or finds herself eating fried chicken for comfort when things go awry. There is no calorie count to think of when she’s considering whether or not to go on a date with Liam (Riley Shanahan), a DJ she’s just met and has to be suspicious of his motives for wanting to see her again after spending a night together, in part because of how she believes she appears to the rest of the world, but also when he’s moving quite fast. She isn’t helped by a call to her friend Raquel, who suspects he’s a player based on the sole evident of his occupation, and the date is disastrous when she passes along the thoughts of others as her own instead of trusting herself to have an opinion.
“20 Pounds to Happiness” isn’t billed as a sequel to “Real Women Have Curves,” but it doesn’t disassociate itself from its screenwriter Josefina Lopez’s most famous work when the support group that Cari is a part of uses it as its title, and after Lopez previously considered the self-confidence of a teenager growing up in a Latino household, the mere fact of its existence acknowledges a sad truth that 20 years later, those feelings of inadequacy may not be as resolved as easily as they generally are in the movies. Finding Cari still under her mother’s roof in Boyle Heights where it’s hard to tell whether the stress of taking care of her or the direct criticisms of being called fat are taking their toll, the film sees the character at a crossroads when an offer arises to get gastric bypass surgery – at a discount when it involves three friends from her support group – if only she can gain 20 pounds to meet the weight requirement while a budding romance with Liam threatens to take off 20 as she starts to feel better about herself. Either way she goes, she could be putting her health in jeopardy, less so physically than psychologically when her self-perception is shot.
Tonally, “20 Pounds to Happiness” couldn’t be much different than Patricia Cardoso’s naturalistic adaptation of “Real Women Have Curves” that offered a breakout role to star America Ferrera, but De León, who directs in addition to starring, fashions a big, broad comedy that clearly seeks to directly engage an audience that sees themselves in Cari, leading to a climactic monologue where the character essentially breaks the fourth wall to pour her heart out to the audience. If her on-screen alter ego doesn’t trust herself, De León does as a filmmaker to convey the core of the story, barely hiding the film’s spartan budget – the sparsely-attended club that Liam spins records at can underwhelm when he is built up to be a star on the rise. The passion on display counts for a lot as Cari is constantly at the mercy of others when she has so little faith in herself and thrown into outrageous situations as a result, eventually having to contend with Liam’s social media-savvy ex (Christiana Leucas). Still, there is no greater enemy to Cari than herself, which is recognized for the double-edged sword that it is when there may be no one harder on her, but she also can use the knowledge that she only has herself to rely on to pull her out of her discontent, and as her weight may fluctuate, “20 Pounds to Happiness” feels solid throughout.
“20 Pounds to Happiness” does not yet have U.S. distribution.