WHAT IT S ABOUT:
A quietly tortured woman supports her husband s bid for state assembly while battling personal demons until she finds release through the world of aerobics.
WHAT WE THOUGHT:
There is a scene in
Mrs America when Rose Byrne as Gloria Steinham works through a hallway in slow motion, and everyone is transfixed by her. I felt similarly when watching her in Physical, but even that could not distract from the shallowly written characterisation, unlikeable characters and messy plot.
Physical is the story of Sheila Rubin (Rose Byrne), a bored housewife who is dealing with a negative self-image. We first meet Sheila in 1986, backstage as she is about to shoot a workout video, and then the show flashes back to 1981, and she is opening her bathroom door to her college professor husband proposing a threesome with one of his students. It is evident that this the origin story of how the passive and dutiful housewife became a fitness mogul.