Shallow Hal is a quirky romantic comedy about a guy named Hal Larsen (Jack Black) who only cares about supermodels looks when it comes to women and nothing else. That is until he is hypnotized by self-help guru Tony Robbins to only see the inner beauty of women.

Now every time he looks at an ugly female he sees a beautiful women instead. That improves his ability to pick up women. Before every time he tried to pick up good looking women he was always rejected but not
anymore. Picking up girls has become easy cause they are unattractive even though he himself is unaware of why all of a sudden he’s getting lucky.

That’s when he falls in love Rosemary (Gwyneth Paltrow), a 300 pound overweight women who is kind and has a wonderful sense of humor. Only Hal sees her as this thin and attractive blond bombshell.

His friends and strangers make fun of him and Rosemary and he doesn’t get why they are that way.

She also happens to be his boss’ daughter. Soon a happy romance ensues until the spell he’s under is broken and he sees Rosemary as she really is
physically. The way everybody else sees her. Will he still choose her or dump her and get back to his old ways of being callous and seeing beauty as only skin deep? The answer my friend is blowing somewhere in
the movie.

To get to that point you’ll have to sit through a lot of trashy humor and plenty of stereotypes being depicted for laughs.

Shallow Hal has a lot of mean spirited fat jokes even though it’s a movie with a message about the inner beauty of people regardless of their looks.

Being a Peter and Bobby Farrelly directed movie you expect plenty of sick shocking humor that’s pretty embarrassing and they aim to please.

But this time they fall short. Maybe it’s because by now most people have become used to their humor and it’s not as fresh as it used to be.

Nonetheless, you’ll find yourself laughing here and there at some pretty obnoxious moments in the film.

Shallow Hal is a pretty “shallow” film that comes across as trivial and cruel. The characters are not believable and therefore any transformation they go
through seems artificial and forced rather than natural.

So although Shallow Hal comes across as trying to do the right thing with humor when it comes to demonstrating the importance of inner beauty, it falls
short in pulling it off in a compelling way.

3 Stars

Gil Benzeevi