Lbs.

During the shaggy dog tale told in [Lbs.] (currently screening at [Village East Cinema](http://www.villageeastcinema.com/)), 27-year-old Neal gets his Henry Thoreau on in an effort to save his own life. But it’s not technology or other people who drive him into a minuscule trailer in upstate New York: It’s his weight.

When a movie is written and filmed as part of the writer-actor’s effort to save his own life and slim down, the movie feels, to a certain extent, critic-proof. Things that may have bothered me in another film seem more tolerable here, as we watch screenwriter Carmine Famiglietti (who co-wrote the film with director Matthew Bonifacio) drop his real life weight down before our eyes. Kirstie Alley’s half-hearted attempts at losing weight on her new reality show seem even more shallow and narcissistic compared to Famiglietti’s; he has a camera following him around, too, but Lbs. is deadly serious about his task.

For the most part, that is. The film gets off to a rough start, as Neal refuses to believe the seriousness of his condition, even after a heart attack. His desperation for junk food is treated in a jokey way, as if candy bars and soda bottles were crack and meth. It’s not until he’s humiliated at his sister’s wedding that the film—and Neal—get serious.

The tender scenes of Neal alone in the woods, forging a tenuous connection with a lonely waitress (Miriam Shor) are lovely in a low-key way that makes the first quarter of the film seem even more blustery. And though the ending feels too pat, with Neal confronting a very real symbol of what could have happened had he not fled his family and home, who can resist the real-life story of a screenwriter who wrote an entire movie to save his own life? Kirstie Alley, take note.