SHALLOW HAL

A chauvinist pig only has eyes for sylphs until he's hypnotized into seeing the beauty beneath the blimp.

(Now in stores)


CAST: Gwyneth Paltrow, Jack Black, Jason Alexander, Joe Viterelli, Rene Kiby

DIRECTORS: Bobby Farrelly and Peter Farrelly

"...an ill-conceived, slovenly executed and disingenuous comedy from the Farrelly brothers. A parable about inner beauty and true love, it's hardly what you'd expect from the kings of caca comedy and, needless to say, they are way out of their league...The Farrellys obviously don't buy their own pretensions. On one hand, they remind us that beauty is only skin deep; on the other, most of the laughs are at Rosemary's expense. She's more than calorically challenged, she's a glutton..." --Rita Kempley, The Washington Post

"The most shocking thing about it may be its unabashed sincerity. There are enough moments of demented comedy to make you aspirate your popcorn, but by the end you may find yourself, with some amazement, sniffing back tears...what makes 'Shallow Hal' touching rather than icky is that it mocks and celebrates at the same time...The Farrellys cunningly transform a series of fat jokes--the slender Ms. Paltrow causes restaurant furniture to collapse and causes a tidal wave when she cannonballs into a public pool--into a tender fable and a winning love story...Ms. Paltrow manages the difficult trick---necessary for the movie's premise to succeed--of being utterly oblivious to her own beauty...the Farrellys present their parable with absolute conviction, so that when we (and Hal) finally see Rosemary as she really is, we are ashamed of our own shallowness. What a beautiful thing." --A.O. Scott, The New York Times

"...the new Farrelly brothers bad-taste comedy, stars Jack Black as a randy jerk and Gwyneth Paltrow as the porcine do-gooder he is hypnotized into seeing as a babe. Some good gross-out inventiveness, but too heartfelt by half. Do we really need the Farrellys to champion inner beauty?". . .Peter Rainer, New York

"'Shallow Hal' is often very funny, but it is also surprisingly moving at times...
It's very funny across the usual range of Farrelly gags, from the spray-on toupee to a woman with a long second toe to a man with a tail. Paltrow is truly touching. And Black, in his first big-time starring role, struts through with the blissful confidence of a man who knows he was born for stardom, even though he doesn't look like your typical Gwyneth Paltrow boyfriend." --Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

"...this staggeringly earnest, wholly sentimental film about seeing beyond surface appearances comes from filmmakers you'd hardly expect to persistently appeal to our better natures...The truth is, there's something uncomfortably familiar about having the Farrellys suddenly wandering into three-hanky territory. It's reminiscent of watching Robin Williams' entire career turn to mush ...To paraphrase Raymond Chandler, some guys pick the wrong times to go soft." --Kenneth Turan, The Los Angeles Times

"'Shallow Hal' is not so much about how gross people are as how beautiful they are once you get beyond the rude, noisy flesh. It's a sermon wrapped in a fat suit....the joke's on the overweight, the misshapen, the disfigured, and the homely. But the bigger joke is clearly on jerks (men, mostly) who would reject people (women, mostly) based solely on looks... we're warmly encouraged to feel the hurt that Rosemary constantly lives with, made vivid by a notably touching, sensitive performance from sylphlike Paltrow, who convincingly conveys a world of self-protection against pain." --Lisa Scharzbaum, Entertainment Weekly

"There is something condescending, not to mention hypocritical, about asking an audience to laugh uproariously at the spectacle of a fat person being sneered at and dissed as 'rhino' or 'hippo' or 'holy cow,' and then to justify those laughs by saying it's society's fault and tacking on a happy ending that allegedly teaches a moral lesson. It won't wash. For the first time, the Farrellys seem to be embarrassed by their own crudeness. For the first time, they should be." Peter Travers, Rolling Stone