Loading ...Movie Review - Shallow Hal
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2001 / 113 Minutes / PG-13
Reviewed by Dale Nauertz
First off, let me tell you one thing: this movie is not funny. Sure, it has its moments. It has a couple little chuckles in it. But I found it to be more of a drama, strange for a film that is marketed as a comedy and features Gwyneth Paltrow in a fat suit.
But I’m still recommending it. Why? you may ask, and you’d be right in asking. It is a comedy, after all, and I usually get pissed off at comedies that are this downright unfunny. But the reason I didn’t laugh was a unique one, and one that poses an exception to my usual rules governing the review of a comedy. The reason I didn’t laugh, even though many of the times I could feel the filmmakers trying to get me to do so, was because I was so involved with the characters. I was so utterly absorbed in their situations and circumstances, I sympathized and empathized with the two lead characters so completely that I actually found most of the jokes made at their expense to be painful. I actually felt my heart ache for the people in this movie more than in most dramas I have seen. And just because the actors and filmmakers invested me so deeply in these characters, I cannot give this film anything less than a good review.
The plot concerns a very shallow man named Hal (Jack Black). On his father’s deathbed, and heavily medicated, Hal’s father told him only to date women based on their looks and never to marry for love. Hal has taken this advice to heart and will only date women if they match up to his ideal of what a woman should look like (there is one hilarious moment where he is pointing out the inadequacies of women such as Britney Spears and Heidi Klum). One day, he gets trapped in an elevator with self-help guru Tony Robbins (playing himself) who puts Hal under a mental suggestion which allows him only to see people’s inner beauty.
Shortly thereafter, Hal meets a beautiful woman named Rosemary (Gwyneth Paltrow). The only problem is that Hal’s friend Mauricio (Jason Alexander, with a horrible hairdo) seems to be seeing a completely different woman altogether. An obese one.
Of course, problems ensue. How could they not? People question Hal’s motivations in dating Rosemary, while Hal himself wonders why they do. He wonders why no one else seems to see the beauty that he has found and everyone reacts so strangely to seeing the two of them together. He also wonders why Rosemary has such self esteem problems, since he can find absolutely no flaws with her.
Call me crazy, but this is a wonderful premise, one of the most original ones I’ve seen in recent years. But it doesn’t lend itself to anything exceptionally funny, most of the time. There is a hilarious scene involving Jason Alexander, a woman with a long toe, and Beatles tickets that’s pretty damn funny. But the problem is that the characters are so completely well-developed and so wonderfully acted (they live before our eyes the way that the best actors can make them do) that we find all the jokes at their expense to be, well, rather tasteless and sometimes downright mean. It is a tribute to Gwyneth’s acting talents in this film that I couldn’t laugh when she broke a chair by sitting on it or made a car sag with her mere presence in its passenger seat. I loved her and cared for her just too much. And when Jack Black made a couple of choices, I simply cringed and felt frustration when the film meant to have me rolling in the aisles. I could feel what the poor bastard was going through, and it was too truthful, too painful to be funny.
I fell in love with Hal and Rosemary. None of this would be possible if it were not for the sympathetic and loving direction of the Farrelly brothers and the nuanced writing of them and Sean Moynihan and the impeccable acting of Jack Black and especially Gwyneth Paltrow.
She was a revelation here and gives perhaps the best female performance I have seen this year (you might think I’m on crack, but I’m not lying). She makes you feel her character’s pain. She makes her self esteem issues so real and tangible that I was astonished to find myself near tears much of the time. Even without the fat suit, she makes Rosemary very credible and makes her pain very real. It’s a beautiful performance. So is Jack’s performance as Hal. He is remarkable here, taking a character that could have easily been one note and imbuing him with heart and soul and subtleties. It’s a rich portrayal, so good that you wonder if he and Gwyneth realized that they were stuck in a comedy that involved jokes at the expense of a man with spinal bifida.
Unfortunately, the jokes don’t work. The film would have worked a lot better with less of them. It would have been an “A” caliber drama with some neat twists and clever ideas. And it deals with subjects of obesity and loneliness in challenging and rather uncompromising fashion. It’s too bad that it has to keep hitting us with the same one joke over and over again. Look, the fat lady sat on a chair and broke it. Oh, ha ha ha. Look, she ate a lot of food really quickly. Oh, ha ha ha. Really, is this all the better you boys could do? It’s not funny. In fact, when you care about the characters so much, it’s actually rather mean-spirited. And the spinal bifida jokes just didn’t work at all. A lot of times I felt frustrated at this movie’s need to keep cracking jokes. I cared about the story and wanted it to work on its own merits. A strange thing for a film by the same two guys who made the awesome “There’s Something About Mary”, but that’s how I felt.
If you’re expecting to bust a gut, you may find yourself disappointed. But if you want to see a surprisingly moving film about two sad souls finding love in a mean-spirited universe, then give “Shallow Hal” a shot. You might just be pleasantly surprised.
