SHALLOW HAL

There’s something about this well-meaning and even engaging new film from Bobby and Peter Farrelly that doesn’t quite work. The set-up is plausible: Hal Larsen (Jack Black), whom the trailers describe as “the shallowest man in the world,” sees women only for their physical beauty, and though he’s no Mr. America, he’s almost as picky as his even shallower friend Mauricio (Jason Alexander). But then he gets stuck in an elevator with “Personal Power” guru Tony Robbins (playing himself) and is hypnotized into seeing only “inner beauty.” Now he’s a success with (seemingly) gorgeous women, and the most beautiful of all, Rosemary (Gwyneth Paltrow), turns out to be his boss’s daughter; that leads to dinner with the family, and after hearing Hal’s ideas, old man Shanahan (Joe Viterelli) invites him to make a presentation to the board and promotes him. Life can’t get any better — until Mauricio persuades Tony to undo the spell and Hal discovers he’s dating a 300-pound woman.

Slick but not greasy, Jack Black gives Hal a puppy-like vulnerability, and Gwyneth Paltrow endows Rosemary with tender, melting touches of sweetness and humor. But Shallow Hal flounders when it tries to explore the deep end of human emotions. It’s still about physical beauty: mostly we see Rosemary through Hal’s eyes, Paltrow as she is rather than in her “fat suit,” so that the film comes off as just one more male fantasy about the gorgeous girl who falls for the ordinary-looking guy. We’re encouraged to think that conventionally unattractive people are automatically bright, witty, and caring (a former Peace Corps volunteer, Rosemary works in a hospital burn-victim pediatric ward); apart from the chairs that break under her, it’s never suggested that Rosemary might have emotional issues or health problems. And why fat, except that the Farrellys think it’s funny? Why not have Hal fall for an ordinary-looking woman and let her act out her “inner beauty”? In the end, of course, Hal does right by Rosemary, and we even find out why Mauricio can’t get close to women, but the film remains stuck in the kiddie pool.

— Peter Keough