Coastal Areas

Films have much to say about taking a dad bod on vacation — from cheap laughs to the sartorial glories of Gérard Depardieu. Ever since Elon Musk bought Twitter and somehow made the tailoring guru Derek Guy — better known by his handle @dieworkwear — an internet star, men’s wear has been the subject of more volcanically impassioned discussion online than ever. Where should the button on a suit jacket sit? Are brown shoes ever acceptable? Cargo shorts: yes or no? We are all critics of fit and silhouette now, pursing our lips in displeasure at every collar gap. But even in the final month of a brutally hot summer, one question remains underexplored: How should the thick-middled man present himself on the beach?The best answers to this question come not from the internet but from movies. In a culture dominated by the young, fun and hard-bodied, the middle-aged big man struggles for visibility; he is dismissed as unimpressive, a cultural dead weight. (Women, of course, often experience far more profound and vicious versions of this.) The silver screen has traditionally devoted itself to the glorification of slender frames, washboard abs and hourglass figures. But amid its celluloid profusion of perfect 10s, there is a small but important subgenre of films examining the dramas — corporeal, sartorial, emotional — of the blockily built man at the seaside. If you, like me, are the proud owner of a dad bod and urgently need relief from the heat, the world’s filmmakers have a message: You are not alone.To be fair, the stories of doughy dudes by the water are not always happy ones. The role is usually played for laughs, with extra pounds often symbolizing a defect of character. One thinks of the Russian oligarch Dimitry in the recent eat-the-rich satire “Triangle of Sadness,” lounging on a superyacht in vise-tight swimmers and a libidinally flowing gown, his gut round as the earth. Or the volatile movie executive Jack Lipnick in “Barton Fink,” tyrannically calling the shots in 1940s Hollywood from a poolside recliner, his supersize trunks hitched up to his navel. Or there’s the wetsuited dad that Kevin James plays in the 2010 comedy “Grown Ups,” who clears the pool at an amusement park after his urine turns a patch of water blue.For a more subtle portrayal, consider the 2016 Greek thriller “Suntan,” which explores, with uncommon sensitivity, the beachbound big boy’s pathologies and fears: the fretting over attire, the embarrassment of the torso reveal, the sense of liberation once hidden under the water. “Suntan” follows Kostis, a balding middle-aged doctor living on an Aegean island, as he descends into despair and madness after becoming obsessed with Anna, a lithe and carefree 21-year-old on a beach holiday with friends. But it is a wardrobe drama as much as a beach one: For Kostis, the question of how to dress as a balloon-bellied man is intimately tied to the question of how to be. His emotional constipation (and eventual doom) are literalized through his clothing, which remains unchanged even as he experiences a sexual awakening with Anna and then confronts her eventual rejection. From the film’s beginning to its end, we see the dumpy doctor dragging himself to the beach in the same tired get-up of long pants pulled over swimming shorts, grubby white business shirt, bucket hat and dusty Crocs.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.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More