How un-PC can one movie be? (Shallow Hal (DVD))

Member Name: notallsoft

Product:	Shallow Hal (DVD)
Date:	05/12/01 (48 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Funny, some fabulous characters, makes you think

Disadvantages: Often tasteless, could be considered offensive

Essentially, Shallow Hal is just one big fat joke, Farrelly brothers style. Which should be a good enough reason to avoid this film...except that it is soooo funny you'll find yourself laughing at other peoples' misfortunes along with the rest of the audience.

The story (read with caution - major spoilers) is as follows:

Jack Black plays Hal Larsen, a man whose experience, as a young boy, of saying goodbye to his dying father, has left him emotionally warped. He cannot imagine having a relationship with any woman who is not model perfect. However, not being male model material himself, he has problems frankly getting anyone to go out with him.
But then, one day, he gets stuck in a lift with a creepy self-help guy, Tony Robbins, who hypnotises our hero to only see the inner beauty of the people he meets, whether male or female.
Instead of dating beautiful women, Hal now sets his sights on interesting, friendly but conventionally, well, ugly ladies, much to the disgust of his best buddy, Mauricio, played with vim by Jason Alexander.
Then Hal meets the girl of his dreams, Rosemary; to him she looks like Gwyneth Paltrow...to everyone else, she looks like Gwyneth in a very convincing (very disgusting) fat suit. Cue much hilarity, as apparently slim Rosemary crushes chairs and makes a splash a hippo could be proud of. Eventually, Mauricio decides something must be done about his friend and sets about breaking the spell.
Will Hal still love his buxom beloved when he sees her as she really is? You'll have to watch it to find out.

For all that's been said about how tasteless this film is - and face it, if you were watching it with a large friend, or perhaps were unhappy with your own weight, it could well make you squirm - it does tackle some pretty deep subjects in a lighthearted manner. It strips bare our obsession with looks, through the vehicle of the exaggerated Hal, and throws out lots of thought-provoking p
lays involving the concept of beauty. It also addresses uncomfortable subjects like deformity, with an interesting combination of tact and tastelessness.

Do not go and see this film if you can only take it at face value, because at face value it's a sweet but insulting love story. If you watch it with a little more of an open mind, you could find that this is quite a gem, which despite its clumsy slapstick is quite a parable for our image-obsessed culture.

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