The Farrelly brothers’ latest comedy, “”Shallow Hal,”” doesn’t feel like a Farrelly brothers comedy at all. Gone is the vile toilet humor and immature bodily fluid jokes that powered the siblings’ “”There’s Something About Mary”” to blockbuster status. In its place is a more subdued, dare I say poignant romantic comedy that could just as easily have been directed by the generic likes of a Nora Ephron, if not for the film’s remarkably crass premise, which has Farrelly fingerprints all over it.
The movie stars “”High Fidelity”” scene-stealer Jack Black as Hal, who at the ripe old age of 12 received death-bed advice from his morphine-induced father to only date gorgeous young women. Hal agrees, though that particular outlook has seriously warped his social conscious by the time he’s reached his mid-30s. When trapped on an elevator with Tony Robbins, the self-help guru hypnotizes the misguided swinger so he’s only able to see a person’s inner beauty, not what’s on the surface. Robbins’ trance works too well, though, and Hal falls hard for the 300-plus pound Rosemary (Gwyneth Paltrow), a woman he sees as a twig-thin beautiful blonde. “”Hal”” treads bravely through delicate waters, milking potentially offensive material for humor. Hal and his follically challenged friend, Mauricio (Jason Alexander), waste their evenings tearing down women in nightclubs, but the joke is they’re hardly catches themselves. And since it’s a Farrelly brothers comedy, the duo have a friend suffering from Spina Bifida, which means his lower torso is crumpled and he walks on his hands. But in reality, “”Hal”” exemplifies the Farrellys uncharacteristically pulling on the reins, showing restraint when history tells us it could have been so much worse. And for that we have Paltrow to thank. Instead of shamelessly plunging to the expected depths, the actress actually raises the whole film up to her level, achieving (gasp!) true emotions of loneliness, dejection and remorse. Paltrow is so good at playing Rosemary, she actually reverses the film’s premise, perfectly personifying a fat girl trapped in a waifer-thin body. When getting out of a car, the petite star sways and teeters as if she were carting around an extra 200 pounds. And her delivery is so delicate, so sensitive, we believe she’s had to live her life with the stigma of being overweight, protective of her fragile ego and hesitant to trust anyone who isn’t insulting her. Too bad Paltrow didn’t realize that she was making a comedy, because the result is far more touching than humorous. It doesn’t help that the rest of the cast acts like they’re reading off of cue cards that aren’t being turned fast enough. Jokes fall flat like bricks in a fishbowl, and there are far too many patches of awkward silence and sputtered conversation that appears to have been improvised. The whole thing plods along as if it, and not Gwyneth, were wrapped in a fat suit. Paltrow’s performance alone is worth seeing, but the rest of the film can’t shed its dead weight and find the jokes buried beneath its goofy premise.Grade: CBy Sean O’ConnellNov. 9, 2001