Written by Sowmya Gopi
Sometimes figuring out who you are means understanding that we are a mosaic of experiences. I’m Dumplin’. And Will and Willowdean. I’m fat. I’m happy. I’m insecure. I’m bold.
Dumplin’ is based on Julie Murphy’s young adult novel of the same name, which focuses on the fraught relationship between Macdonald’s high school student Willowdean and her mother Rosie. As a former pageant queen, Rosie has never gotten over her early triumphs and Willowdean or Dumplin’, as her mother calls her, much to the slightly overweight teen’s dismay, they don’t see eye to eye on much. Although her early years were happily spent being raised by someone else: her vivacious Aunt Lucy, who loved every bit of Willowdean and encouraged her to always be herself. The movie plot revolves around Dumplin’s life with her mother and Aunt Lucy too for that matter of fact, who’s no longer with her.
The modern-day female friendship depicted in this movie should be encouraged on-screen more, one that veers away from boring jealousies and cheap fights over boys. This coming-of-an-age tale also shows how not every teen girl in crisis needs saving and the need to change herself. The revelation that Willowdean’s vivacious, plus-sized aunt wanted to compete in Rosie’s pageants forces her to do something kind of wild, the sort of plot twist that’s both necessary and totally obvious: she decides to compete in this year’s pageant. She’s not hoping to get made over into a teen beauty queen, she just wants to smash wide open an antiquated system that punished her aunt and twisted her mother. Inevitably, she inspires a whole mess of misfits to follow suit, upending Rosie’s pageant and Willowdean’s entire life.
The film isn’t a story that uses a skinny, conventionally pretty protagonist to pick apart a realm that rewards women exactly like her. It’s more imaginative than that, open to the idea that beauty itself is more expansive and subjective. This film targets the young women who struggle to see themselves in TV and movies, and this feel-good comedy reminds them that they’re beautiful just the way they are. It’s a lesson worth learning, and Dumplin’ is a film well worth your time. Just make sure you have tissues.
