Shallow Hal (2001) ...
The biggest lover story ever told ...
| Released: | November 2, 2001 |
| Running Time: | 113 minutes |
| Cast: | Jack Black Gwyneth Paltrow Jason Alexander Joe Viterelli |
| Writers: | Farrelly brothers |
| Director: | Farrelly brothers |
| My Rating | **1/2 |
Shallow Hal is certainly a very shallow movie. The Farrelly Brothers' movies are pretty much hit and miss with this one, and the Jim Carrey, Rene Zellweger vehicle, Me, Myself and Irene being major misses. Shallow Hal is Jack Black and there's one thing about Jack Black, his acting is often hit or miss as well. Sometime he's perfect for a role, as in King Kong and High Fidelity and in others, he's just too obviously doing his shtick and suffers the same problem as Robin Williams in that his acting is too obviously acting.
This role is way beneath Gwyneth's talents, however, she is gorgeous when she's not the fat girl, and even with the fat suit on, she's kinda hot as well. The bottom line is, the movie tries too hard and never finds a balance between being a sweet, sappy romance and a classic Farrelly brother crass comedy aka. There's Something About Mary and Kingpin.
However, it's likely lots of people liked Shallow Hal and if they got a few laughs and really did like Jack Black's performance, then who am I to say it's a bad movie? It's not really a bad movie, it's just not a very good one.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Shallow Hal is a 2001 romantic comedy film
starring Gwyneth Paltrow as Rosemary Shanahan, Jack Black as Hal Larson and
Jason Alexander as Mauricio. Co-starring in the film are Rene Kirby, Joe
Viterelli, and Brooke Burns. In addition, motivational speaker Tony Robbins has
a small role as himself. Jack Black's ex-girlfriend, Laura Kightlinger, and
Tenacious D bandmate, Kyle Gass, have supporting roles, with Molly Shannon, Ron
Darling and Bruce McGill in cameo roles. It was directed by Peter Farrelly and
Bobby Farrelly, and filmed in Charlotte, North Carolina as well as Sterling,
Massachusetts and Holden, Massachusetts.
Plot summary
A shallow man named Hal (Black)
meets Tony Robbins while stuck in an elevator. Robbins hypnotises him into
seeing people's inner beauty, not their external selves. Subsequently he falls
in love with Rosemary (Paltrow), an obese woman who appears to him to look
slender and beautiful.
His friend Mauricio (Jason Alexander) is not satisfied with Hal's new taste in women, and he talks to Robbins and has Hal un-hypnotized. Discovering that his own sight had misled him, Hal begins to avoid Rosemary. She becomes melancholy and decides to leave the country to join the peace corps. During his search for Robbins to get 're-hypnotised', he finds that Mauricio himself has his own reason for being shallow: he has a vestigial tail which has prevented him from ever getting close to a woman. Hal eventually comes to terms with his feelings and his shallowness and makes up with Rosemary. He discovers he still loves her and decides to accompany her on her trip.
Trivia
* In an interview
with The Guardian on 27 January 2006, Paltrow admitted that Shallow Hal was in
the category of "shite" films that she made only for money.
* Black
admitted that he "sold out" by starring in this film. He stated that he was
eager to work with the Farrelly Brothers but the film turned out to be different
than he had anticipated. "I wasn't proud of it, and I got paid a lot of money,
so in retrospect it feels like a sell-out."
* At one point Hal makes an
odd reference to knowing a kid from Hawaii who tried out for the hockey team,
and that it was "Funny as shit". This is almost certainly a reference to the
movie Airborne which features Jack Black as a student at a school where a surfer
kid from California shows up and tries out for the hockey team.
*
Celebrated film critic Richard Roeper picked this as the tenth best film of
2001.
* Rapper Project Pat did a spoof of this movie in his music video
"Back Clap (Make Dat Thang Clap)"
* Jason Alexander's character turns
down a women whose second toe is longer than her big toe. This is a reference to
the Seinfeld episode "The Tape" where * George inquires on his joke about the
second toe becoming the leader of the toes when it's larger than the big toe.
* To prepare for her role, Gwyneth Paltrow went undercover by going out
to a bar wearing the same latex "fat suit" she used during filming. She was
reportedly treated extremely rudely, and people avoided making eye contact with
her. She later said she felt saddened by the experience and at the injustice
& double-standard overweight people faced.
