No actor has ever expressed the potential of the brick-bodied man on vacation more confidently than Gérard Depardieu.
Other movies offer more hopeful looks, though they still often disappoint. In “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” Philip Seymour Hoffman played the husky expat playboy Freddie Miles with a baggy charisma, his summer looks a mix of generous tan suits, billowy shirts, snug shorts and unlaced boat shoes. (He ends up being bludgeoned to death with a marble bust, so he may not be the best model.) In Jonathan Glazer’s 2000 crime comedy “Sexy Beast,” much of the action takes place around the pool owned by Gary Dove, a former London mob figure enjoying retirement at a seaside villa in Spain. Dove’s serenity, and his wardrobe, are disrupted by an unwanted visit from his former associate Don, a skewer-thin psychopath who wears his shirts tucked in and mocks Dove as a “big oaf,” a “fat crocodile” and a “blob.” The relaxed outfits of Dove’s seaside life — the wide white pants, draping shirts and chunky gold chains — are soon replaced by business suits and mousy overcoats as he heads back to London for one last job. Leisure is thick; business is thin.
If we want to see the resort-ready dad bod redeemed, it’s to gentle family comedies that we must turn. John Candy’s weight was often the subject of his movies, but none explored the drama of a big man’s summer styling quite like the 1985 beach comedy “Summer Rental.” Candy plays Jack, a middle-aged dad who experiences a series of mishaps while vacationing in a Florida resort town. His hesitation to reveal his pillowy body is central to the drama. (Within the first few minutes, he announces to his wife: “Oh, gee, I forgot my bathing suit — I guess I can’t go in the water all summer.”) On his first day, he’s hit with a brutal sunburn. But the plot snaps into action once he heals up, loses his comically loud, pajamalike outfits and relaxes into his own skin. After almost an hour, Jack appears onscreen in a form-flattering, casually commanding outfit: chambray shirt, olive shorts, boat shoes, black sailing cap. He is a man reborn. When he ends up in a boat race against his nemesis, the snooty landlord Al, he wins by removing his pants and tying them to the mast to take advantage of a freak gust of wind. Jack never does pluck up the courage to go topless on the beach, but he still achieves victory by exposing his skin.
Confidence, ultimately, is crucial — and no actor has ever expressed the potential of the brick-bodied man on vacation more confidently, more purely, than Gérard Depardieu in “Mon Père, ce Héros” (“My Father, the Hero”), a 1991 French comedy about a dad vacationing with his precocious 14-year-old daughter. His character scrambles to keep up as his daughter engages in an increasingly elaborate series of high jinks to attract the attention of a local boy. But while the movie strains to present Depardieu as a frazzled, anxious man, the outfits he sports suggest an absolutely unshakable inner calm. An elegantly patterned short-sleeve shirt; a dark tracksuit top worn with white pants, a fedora and no shirt; a rumpled summer suit with shirt cuffs turned up over the jacket sleeves; a parade of long, gauzy shirts in neutral hues — Depardieu gives a clinic in how to dress as a big guy by the sea, dominating beaches, dance floors, resort lobbies and restaurants with loosefitting freedom. From the moment this Chad of the sands appears onscreen in a barely buttoned white shirt, salmon shorts and what appear to be laceless white canvas slip-ons — ropes of hair snapping in the wind, shirt fronts tied together with a saucy knot, shorts hugging each buttock and testicle into visibly separate compartments — we know that everything will work out; the father and the daughter will be at peace. How could a man dressed this virtuosically ever fail?
The key is to embrace the big frame and the rich potential of the XL wardrobe — to own them. It is possible to project self-confidence and flair even with a body that society deems maximally average; it is possible to convey that your rich enjoyment of life is not affected by a body that some (including, quite possibly, you yourself) might see as a touch comical. If that extra weight is good for anything, it’s leaning in.
Read More: Embrace Your Summer Dad Bod. These Movies Show You the Way.
