Review of Shallow Hal (2001) by Alvin Y — 02 Oct 2010

I liked it, I just liked it. Just a good one but not as close as being a great one. This movie was I think like a ripped off to many lousy romantic comedies out there, even the ones that are considered the greatest love stories of all time. One thing is that, this is not a romance movie, it is a film that tells us about how the real beauty is always on the eyes of the beholder. In here, we see Jack Black's character Hal as a guy who was hypnotized by a therapist while stuck on a elevator and what turns out to be is that Hal can see a woman that is so pretty and sexy but the reality is that they are really ugly and fat. His best friend Mauricio, he is the one whom Hal thinks he is being so careless about him because he thinks that he is trying to stay away from girls. An of course until Hal met Rosemary, played by Gwyneth Paltrow in a dual role as a sexy and a fat one, Hal and Rosie become couples at the start because in Hal's vision, she is so damn sexy but the reality is that she is fat and ugly. At the end, after being reverse once again to the real world, Hal gets to see now real girls that are so ugly and understands how they are really ugly and dislike by some people. Towards the end, Hal says something to Rosemary and they fall in love once again.

I think the film's message is that beauty is not always the key for looking a good woman to hang out with or even to be in the future, the real thing is that beauty is always inside the heart but no matter how ugly or fat you are, the important matter is that you have a good and loving personality. I would really say that this is not an original story since you know the Farrely Brothers' movies are not original, they're just a comedy try to make us entertain and smile even just a bit. I don't typically like rom-coms but this is surely got my taste on it. â??Shallow Halâ?? is a good movie but some moments/scenes in this film are just nothing that are not applicable to film, I just loved the idea of putting the main character into something reverse in order to make things good.