Shallow Hal *** (2001, Jack Black, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jason Alexander, Joe Viterelli, Rene Kirby, Bruce McGill) – Classic Movie Review 1060

The funny Jack Black stars as Hal, who is obsessed with physical perfection and dates only gorgeous dames until a self-help guru hypnotises him into seeing inner beauty. He meets an obese, 300 pound woman – his boss’s daughter – whom he can only see as lovely, willowy Gywneth Paltrow (though we can see in clever fat suit makeup).

With overweight and less-than-beautiful folk cruelly mocked in this shallow, thin comedy, there’s more as bad-taste than fun this time in this 2001 movie from writer-director brothers Peter and Bobby Farrelly (who also made There’s Something About Mary in 1998).

But the firecracker Black is an amusing bundle of energy and good-sport Paltrow is utterly charming. And, though the film is often uncomfortable, sometimes clumsily handled and not always well scripted, it is still funny in places.

Setting out to surprise audiences by wearing hot pants, a bikini and a fat suit, Paltrow says: ‘I thought it would be so much fun to do something that was completely different, outside myself and a departure from what people expect of me.’

Trying (not entirely successfully) to avoid a fat-joke film, the Farrelly Brothers say: ‘The point of the movie is that the shell shouldn’t matter. What’s important is getting to the heart of the person.’

It needed four hours a day of prosthetic makeup to bulk the svelte Paltrow up to 21 stone.

Also in the cast are Jason Alexander, Joe Viterelli, Rene Kirby and Bruce McGill. The writers are Peter and Bobby Farrelly and Sean Moynihan.

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Film Review 1060 derekwinnert.com