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'Nothing funny is happening here
This comment from a disappointed viewer of Shallow Hal says it all. The biggest laugh? The idea that the movie pretends to offer an intelligent handling of love and obesity.
By STEVE PERSALL
© St. Petersburg Times,
published November 8, 2001
[Photo: Twentieth Century Fox]
Rosemary (Gwyneth Paltrow) and Hal (Jack Black) can share a tender moment over an enormous chocolate shake in Shallow Hal, thanks to a miracle of hypnosis.
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Shallow Hal is such a lackluster comedy that co-directors Peter and Bobby Farrelly can't even scrounge a decent set of outtakes for the end credits. Those bloopers, bleeps and practical jokes on the set are replaced by home movies of almost every crew member. As with the rest of the film, one waits for something funny to occur, and it seldom does.
Shallow Hal isn't another Dumb and Dumber, Kingpin or There's Something About Mary, no matter how much Farrelly fans hope it will be, although some may delude themselves into believing it is. It isn't even mean-spirited enough, like Me, Myself & Irene or Say It Isn't So, to provoke annoyance and a vague sense of respect for that. The movie consists of watered-down, warmed-over jokes about obesity, with the funniest ones revealed in preview trailers.
The premise has promise. Jack Black, that devilish scene-stealer from High Fidelity and the heavy metal put-on Tenacious D, plays Hal Larson, an energetic loser who considers himself a ladies' man. He's looking for the supermodel types, and they're always looking the other way. A chance encounter with self-help guru Tony Robbins (playing himself) hypnotizes Hal to see the inner beauty in the ugliest beasts. Hal sees foxes while everybody else sees dogs.
Hal falls head over heels in love when he sees Rosemary Shanahan, played from his perspective by Gwyneth Paltrow and everybody else's by an unidentified overweight woman. Some scenes are established merely as excuses to show the "real" Rosemary in hot pants, a bikini or any other attire to make insensitive viewers groan.
The best possible message in the idea, the one the Farrellys will swear they deliver, is that beauty is available in any body size. That notion gets diluted when we're nudged to ridicule fat Rosemary. Why do only Paltrow's scenes contain romantic spark while the obese woman bends diving boards? Things improve a bit when Paltrow dons a convincing fat suit in the final act, her eyes reflecting the hurt we've somehow assisted. Paltrow isn't subjected to the negative side of this split personality, just cake gobbling and tent-size panties.
But forget sociology lessons. Shallow Hal just isn't a funny movie. The jokes are stale when they're around at all, the pacing so sluggish that a moviegoer at an advance screening who yelled "Nothing funny is happening here" seemed more astute than rude. The Farrellys lose something when they clean up for PG-13 tastes (unless they hire Jim Carrey).
Black's best acting trait, a prankish streak recalling John Belushi, is muted in these circumstances. Ironically, Black dropped several pounds for this leading-man miscasting, a measure of how the film caters to thin-is-in sensibilities it should be skewering. Jason Alexander has a couple of decent wisecracks as Hal's pal and the film's best gross-out moment, a fleeting reminder of how wild the Farrellys can be when they put their twisted minds to it.
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Shallow Hal
- Grade: D
- Directors: Peter Farrelly, Bobby Farrelly
- Cast: Jack Black, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jason Alexander, Joe Viterelli, Tony Robbins
- Screenplay: Sean Moynihan, Peter Farrelly, Bobby Farrelly
- Rating: PG-13; profanity, sexual situations
- Running time: 105 min.
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