Cherry Baby

Rowell (Slow Dance) delivers a big-hearted if imperfect second-chance love story. Recently separated from Tom, her husband of eight years in Omaha, Neb., Cherry feels a spark when she runs into her college crush, Russ. Unlike back then, this time the attraction is mutual, and the two strike up a fast-moving romance. Though she appears to cheerfully accept being fat (“She could say it out loud. She didn’t hide from it”), Cherry suffers from persistent self-doubts, especially as she embarks on this new relationship. Meanwhile, Tom has been in Los Angeles helping produce a feature film based on his webcomic about a Cherry lookalike named Baby. When Tom returns to Omaha to pack up his things, Cherry’s forced to confront her lingering heartbreak. Rowell punctuates her appealing conversational style with parenthetical asides on such subjects as Cherry’s favorite Midwestern foods, while also thoughtfully exploring internalized fatphobia and the notion of self-acceptance in the age of GLP-1 weight loss drugs. Unfortunately, the characters’ emotions and motivations remain unclear, especially Russ’s, and a late flashback that finally explains the circumstances of Cherry and Tom’s breakup feels both confusing and anticlimactic. This is a mixed bag. Agent: Christopher Schelling, Selectric Artists. (Apr.)