Review of Norbit (2007) by Markb. — 10 Apr 2007

This cheerfully overinflated, cheekily offensive comedy will retain a permanent footnote in movie history as The Movie That Cost Eddie Murphy An Oscar (for his spectacular supporting turn in Dreamgirls).

It shouldn't have. Say what you will about the movie itself, but you can't deny Murphy's astounding comedic skill in his multiple roles as the nerdy title character, the grotesquely huge woman he marries, and an elderly Asian man who runs the orphanage/ restaurant that Norbit spends his formative years in.

(It's even more of a compliment to Murphy's prowess that it took me a solid ten minutes to realize that he was playing this role, too.) Of course, Murphy is aided immeasurably by the phenomenal makeup work of Rick Baker, who performed the same services for Murphy when he played the Klump family in the Nutty Professor pictures.

..and on a less flashy but equally enjoyable technical level, Clay Griffith's and Richard Greenfield's slightly romanticized small-town sets are a joy to look at. There are several good one-liners; the scene in which gargantuan Rasputia boards a water slide is an effective comic set piece, and the running gag involving her and a car horn killed me.

Quite frankly, if you were bothered by the preview, then nothing short of a gun to your head or the kidnapping of your children should've gotten you into the theater, so you really have nothing to complain about.

This doesn't mean, however, that Norbit DOESN'T have some substantial problems on a very basic thematic and storytelling level. The Nutty Professor's Sherman Klump, who was almost as exaggeratedly proportioned as Rasputia, was also an extremely kind and decent soul who was thoroughly deserving of a rewarding romantic relationship, and it's clear very early on that Norbit ISN'T going to take that route.

(Sherman's closest female counterpart was Gwyneth Paltrow's sweet Rosemary in the Farrelly brothers' best film to date, the endearing Shallow Hal.) In order to sell Norbit's emotional affair with childhood friend Kate (Thandie Newton) the moviemakers have to give Rasputia a thoroughly repellent personality, and they do: she's repulsively bossy, dictatorial, hypocritical and unfaithful to her husband.

That's not the problem, but the casting of the other woman is; I can't knock Newton's performance because she's perfectly charming in this role (and does a lot to counteract her unplayable shrew in The Pursuit of Happyness), but consciously or not, Norbit's makers hired an actress who's far skinnier than the norm, and in doing so propounded the thinking that fat women--who, along with blondes, are the last feasible targets of derisive jokes in these politically correct times--are unworthy of being loved.

Hiring an actress with curves, such as Queen Latifah, Oprah Winfrey or even Murphy's Dreamgirls costar Jennifer Hudson as the romantic interest would have done a lot to erase this caveat, but the moviemakers' failure to do so indicates that Norbit's central flaw isn't its silliness or its grossness but its inability to think outside the box.

Moviegoers who are legitimately bothered by this can at least take comfort in knowing that TV's Ugly Betty (both the character and the actress, America Ferrera) has rapidly become not only a national heroine but a role model.

..and can count down the time before the show's first-season DVD set comes out.