+ another review by Cynthia Fuchs
90 Minutes of Fat Jokes
The Farrelly brothers are at it again. Two of cinema's
more recent enfants terribles, the pair returns
with Shallow Hal in order, it would
seem, to re-stake their claim to the kings of
gross-out humor title. Unfortunately, their claim has
already been indisputably usurped by Tom Green's
atrociously offensive Freddy Got Fingered, in
relation to which Shallow Hal pales. Now, this
might just seem like a good thing, and really, I am at
least glad I didn't have to sit through some
Freddy wannabe. What is unfortunate about
Hal, however, is that while the Farrellys'
previous offerings were, for all their sophomoric dick
and fart humor, somewhat good-spirited, their new film
is just plain old mean.
In There's Something About Mary, Ben Stiller's
nudnik shtick was amusing as always, and is made more
so by the various self-abuses he subjects himself to
in his quest for Mary. Similarly, Jim Carrey's
schizophrenic cop in Me, Myself & Irene is most
amusing when beating himself up. This is to say that
for all the non-PC poking fun at "groups" and "types"
of people, the thrust of these films' humor was
self-abusive. Not so in Hal. Here the jokes are
always about someone else's physical shortcomings, or,
rather, physical excess.
Shallow Hal mines familiar Farrelly terrain.
The plot follows one bumbling, idiotic yet somehow
lovable doofus who is smitten with a curvy
and/or leggy blonde and desperately seeks her love and
acceptance. The
doofus in this case is Hal (Jack Black), an
obsessively superficial single guy, who, he is
reminded by coworkers, always goes for girls WAY out
of his league --
and always fails. Even so, he can't get past his
nit-picky requirements for
female beauty, and is perpetually bewildered why all
these super-model types
don't go for husky boys with severe social
mal-adjustments like himself (of
course, he doesn't see himself in these terms, in his
own mind's eye he is
quite a catch).
Enter infomercial and inspirational super-guru Tony
Robbins, playing infomercial and inspirational
super-guru Tony Robbins. The two get stuck on an
elevator, and during their time together, Tony is
stunned by Hal's the extent of superficiality. Just
so, Tony puts some sort of hypnotist gris-gris
on Hal so that from now on, he will only see a
person's inner beauty (or ugliness), and not be so
merely skin-deep in his romantic inclinations.
Robbins's appearance in the film might be amusing if
it weren't for the fact that his magic act seems so
true to life. Really, the guy's career is mystifying.
He "inspires" people with overworked, new-agey
platitudes about "self-empowerment" and "creative
visualization," and by telling them things they
already knew, or things that aren't any different from
Oprah's self-centered zealotry. He is famous for being
famous, he inspires by being inspirational, and in the
process bilks millions of folks out of their hard
earned dough. He's a snake-oil salesman, yet
Shallow Hal attributes him some supernatural
power over men's minds. But perhaps that is the point
-- Robbins is no more or less ridiculous in Hal
than he is in real life.
Anyhow, after his transformation Hal meets and falls
almost immediately in love with Rosemary Shanahan
(Gwyneth Patlrow), who, as you already know from the
film's advertising blitz, is a big fatty, even though
when Hal looks at her, all he sees is the ethereal
Gywnnie. And here, of course, is the source of all of
the film's humor. Hal sees and chats up "pretty"
girls, then we see the physical reality of these women
through the eyes of other characters. That one's fat.
That one looks like a scarecrow with a big nose and
braces. That one is totally dykey-looking. Hee,
hee, fat girls are funny. So are ugly girls. So are
any girls who don't look like Paulina, Giselle, or
Gwyneth.
Hal does try to undo some of its own
chauvinism, misogyny, and general awfulness towards
physical difference, by, no surprise, making Hal love
Rosemary even after he has been de-hypnotized and
realizes just how fat she is. Hal's awakening is
accomplished with the help of his beer-guzzling buddy
Mauricio (Jason Alexander), who is even shallower, if
that is imaginable, than Hal. Discouraged by all the
"elephants," "rhinos," and "dogs" Hal has been chasing
after, Mauricio tracks down Robbins, gets the answer
to "What did you do to Hal?" as well as the
hypnotist's code to break his spell over his pal. Hal
has a crisis, realizes the only solution is to become
re-hypnotized, avoids Rosemary like the plague, and,
when this solution doesn't materialize, realizes he
loves her no matter what she looks like. After their
rapprochement -- and I'm not giving anything away, as
the film is being promoted as "the biggest love story
ever told" -- the two drive off into the sunset.
OK, so everyone, even Mauricio, learns his lesson --
beauty is only skin deep,
it's what's on the inside that counts, etc. Well this
touchy-feely ending, however appropriately un-bigoted
and positive about physical difference it tries to be,
can't make up for the 90 minutes of fat jokes that
precede it. The bulk of the film is made up of visions
of Rosemary in various awkward positions and stats of
undress, and the running gag is that she is always
breaking seemingly indestructible furniture in Hal's
apartment and restaurants -- where, naturally, she
out-eats, in bulk and speed, Hal at every meal.
I will say one positive thing about Shallow
Hal, and that is that Paltrow turns in a
relatively nuanced performance. At the beginning of
her relationship with Hal, Paltrow does a nice job
expressing Rosemary's wariness at Hal's attentions,
her awareness of the world's discriminations, and
still, her willingness to believe that Hal might be
true. She knows she's a big girl in a weight-obsessed
world, and she's seen and heard it all. She knows the
depth of people's cruelty and essentially tells Hal
he'd better not fuck with her. It's even more
unfortunate, then, that most of the film's jokes come
at her expense.
