Norbit

Norbit (Eddie Murphy) is a shy fellow raised by Mr. Wong (Eddie Murphy again) in a combination orphanage/Chinese restaurant in Boiling Springs Tennessee. As a child Norbit comes to love Kate a fellow orphan but the soulmates are separated when Kate is adopted. Enter Rasputia an aggressive plus-sized 10-year-old who protects him from bullies and demands his romantic loyalty much like her thuggish older brothers demand protection money from all the merchants in Boiling Springs. Rasputia and Norbit eventually marry--and the peevish adult Rasputia is played to great comic effect by Eddie Murphy in a fat suit. Although Rasputia is controlling unfaithful hideous-looking and always madder than a hornet she and Norbit make a life together albeit one based on inertia fear and complacency. The bubble bursts when the now-grown Kate (Thandie Newton) returns to Boiling Springs to buy Mr. Wongs orphanage. Norbits love is rekindled and he must find a way to end his loveless marriage save Kate from marrying a crooked philanderer (Cuba Gooding Jr. in a rare villainous turn) and prevent Rasputias brothers from carrying through with a big con job that would destroy the orphanage and Kates life. Eddie Murphy not surprisingly carries the show with broad juvenile humour fat jokes and pratfalls and while he never aims very high he manages to inject some poignancy into Norbits and Wongs characters even as he plays Rasputia strictly for laughs. Its not Shakespeare--its not even BIG MOMMAS HOUSE--but the laughs are as big as Rasputias muumuu.