Bigger (2018)
Directed by George Gallo
Written by George Gallo
Starring Tyler Hoechlin, Kevin Durand, Julianne Hough, Tom Arnold, Colton Haynes, D.J Qualls, Victoria Justice
Release Date October 12th, 2018
Published October 10th, 2018
Bigger stars Tyler Hoechlin, former Teen Wolf star and current Supergirl co-star, as Joe Weider. If that name sounds familiar it’s because it is the name behind the greatest fitness empire history. Joe Weider is, perhaps, best known for having discovered Arnold Schwarzenegger but his life was far more than that as he revolutionized the fitness game by creating bodybuilding as we know it and changing the way the world viewed getting in shape.
Bigger begins poorly by taking us back, unnecessarily to the early life of Joe Weider and his brother Ben (Aneurin Barnard). We learn that Joe’s mother wanted him to be a girl and never came around to having two sons. She mistreats the brothers throughout their life and while Weider would go on to say that what his mother withheld from him and Ben became the impetus for building his empire to fill that void, it rings hollow if you consider it as him crediting emotional abuse for being successful.
The film begins to get watchable when Tyler Hoechlin finally takes the role as Joe and Ben leave Toronto behind and move on to college and empire-building. Unfortunately, this leads to another brief derailment in Joe’s first marriage. Former Nickelodeon star Victoria Justice plays Kathy Weider and the characterization here is pretty odd. Initially, the chemistry between Justice and Hoechlin isn’t bad but director George Gallo fumbles that very quickly.
Needing to get Kathy out of the story to move on to the more interesting part of Joe Weider’s life, Gallo chooses to have Kathy pretend she has completely forgotten who she married. From their first meeting to their first date through their marriage, Joe is consistently only interested in bodybuilding, nutrition and health. It’s all this version of Joe Weider ever talks about. He shoots everything including his first kiss through the prism of health and fitness as a metaphor for life and love.
So when Kathy returns home to find Joe and Ben working on their muscle and fitness magazine in their dining room Kathy, seemingly out of nowhere, takes umbrage. Kathy is shocked that the man who has talked almost nonstop about his plans to legitimize weightlifting as a sport and a lifestyle is suddenly spending his time building his dream. She turn angry and bitter and by the end of the scene an editing dissolve sends Kathy packing.
Amid the tumult of Joe’s personal life, his professional life becomes a struggle as a more established bodybuilding publisher named Hauk keeps preventing the best bodybuilders in Canada from working with Joe. Hauk, played by character actor Kevin Durand, is a loutish, boorish, bully who tries to keep the Weider brothers from getting into his field of business. When Joe finally gains a foothold by proving his methods of training and nutrition are superior, Hauk finds other ways to try to derail his competition.
Kevin Durand is by far the worst thing about Bigger. I get that he’s a villainous character whom we are supposed to dislike and distrust but Durand’s big, broad, oafish performance stretches credulity. Sure, Mr Hauk is not remembered to this day for a reason while the Weider’s went on to riches and fame and that does seem to indicate that much of what Bigger says about Hauk is based in some reality, Durand’s caricature of Hauk is far too silly and broad to be taken seriously.
I have spent more time complaining about aspects of Bigger than praising the movie which is strange considering I am recommending the movie. So, let’s talk about the positives. I really liked Tyler Hoechlin’s performance as Joe Weider. I enjoyed how earnestly and honestly to the exclusion of all other things, Joe Weider was dedicated to his craft. The script is a tad broad but Hoechlin had me believing in Joe Weider’s obsessive personality that finds him looking at sex as something athletic and marketable.
Hoechlin also sparks well with Julianne Hough as Joe’s second wife, legendary pinup Betty Weider. Betty was a model who Joe first spied on the cover of a magazine. Eventually, he would use his connections via his good friend Jack Lalanne (Colton Haynes) to arrange a meeting that he then uses to cast Betty for a photo shoot with one of his bodybuilders. The bodybuilder in question turns out to be Joe himself and the two begin falling madly in love.
As I said, the chemistry between Hoechlin and Hough is terrific. Unfortunately, director George Gallo nearly ruins this relationship as well with his whipsawing female emotional developments. For no good reason, Betty nearly breaks up with Joe because he talked about fitness in the bedroom. Once again, it’s a case of marriage amnesia as Betty is forced to briefly forget the man she married and ask that he be an entirely different person who doesn’t speak exclusively via the language and metaphor of bodybuilding and fitness.
I’m not kidding when I tell you that I found the single minded way that the script and Hoechlin play Joe Weider is charming. As a character, Joe Weider is fully formed, he is a bodybuilding obsessive who single mindedness drive can either making him irresistibly earnest and naive or can drive people to want to smack him in the face to see if they can find an actual human being beyond the tightly coiled musculature.
Bigger is not groundbreaking, it’s barely even something I can recommend. Joe Weider doesn’t have a real arc in the traditional sense. Weider appears to move from success to success in his career without fail and even in lean times his single minded approach to getting what he wants sustains him. Tyler Hoechlin mines that to create a fully formed if quite odd character. Joe Weider was an oddball but Hoechlin makes him a really interesting oddball, even as the movie around him crumbles under any real scrutiny.
Hoechlin is so winning that I can’t help but recommend Bigger. Oh and one more note: the bodybuilder turned actor who portrays the young Arnold Schwarzenegger, circa 1968, is outstanding. Calum Van Moger looks ludicrously like a young Schwarzenegger. It’s uncanny when he’s first revealed and when he’s posing in the first Mr Olympia, Von Moger unveils that classic Schwarzenegger grin as one final flawless touch on a very minor performance.
