"Shallow Hal" 20 Years Later

Does The Atlantic pay by the word? Over-written, over-wrought.

I hear they're doing a new version with Lizzo.

OP types fat.

The movie was problematic even when it opened. It would never get made now.

I'm ashamed to say I kinda liked that movie.

I did, too, R5.

It's weird how everyone seems to have forgotten that Goop and the Farrelly brothers all insisted there was no fat woman used as a double in the film, yet it was embarrassingly obvious they had a fat woman in shots where she's in skimpy clothing, because they always hid her face. When Paltrow was in a fat suit, she was covered from neck to fingertips and toes, probably because the suit was so unconvincing. The double also weighed about 75 lbs. less than fat-suit Paltrow's character.

The fat jokes were juvenile and unoriginal -- it's like they took the last few minutes of The Man With Two Brains and turned it into a feature film -- but beyond the stupid premise was sloppy filmmaking and a pathetic PR push when it was released that had everyone trying to claim that it was actually well made and a "valentine to fat people."

The best part of this article is how it quotes reviewers who parroted those PR points, and went even further to call it a "tender fable" and other overwrought sentiments. When a studio tells critics how to think about a movie, many critics will happily comply without a second's hesitation.

I have never seen Shallow Hal and didn't read the article. Despite not being a fan of Friends I remember thinking Fat Monica was funny.

I still like this movie. Jason Alexandra character would be a DLer lol.

The Maintenance Phase podcast did a great episode about this movie, but it's only available to the Patreon subscribers.

I lost my appetite and tossed out my sandwich during this movie.

R8 Fat Monica dancing was the funniest thing to happen on Friends.

Even in a fat suit and ugly clothes I'm still way hotter than Kate Winslet was in TITANIC.

Namaste.

Oh, did The Atlantic remind you this movie existed, and that it was problematic?

Have an original thought, why dontcha?

Fat people will always be funny. And now, in this noble age when they tell us fat is empowering, it is even funnier.

My favorite thing about fat people is to follow them while playing the tuba.

Ugly people and fat people are naturally funnier because they need to compensate and cope. Goodlooking people are almost never really that funny, there are exceptions though.

I'm with r5 and r6 - I think this movie is funny.

When will Norbit get cancelled? I think that was the lowest point of Eddie Murphy's career. I'm kinda nostalgic for all those shitty 2000s comedy movies. They were at least watchable.

R10 I'm so glad you mentioned that. I love Maintenance Phase and it is worth subscribing for the bonus episodes!

I'm not sure the movie is salvageable, but some of the things wrong with it could have been helped by Hal being able to see the real Rosemary all along and loving her as is.

Of course that would mean denying the audience the opportunity to have that dried up piece of jerky Paltrow in the lead role.

One thing that Aubrey pointed out in the Maintenance Phase episode that was good about the film is that Rosemary tells Hal (who still thinks she's thin) that no matter what she does or doesn't eat she doesn't lose weight so she just stopped that and now eats what she wants. Per Aubrey, that is the experience of a lot of fat people and she praised that the movie took Rosemary at her word and didn't try to push a "she just needs a new diet" (which really means starve herself) message.

I loved that movie. Still do today.

Only a woman could write such a neurotic article.

....R22 A fat woman.

I love this film. I actually think it’s great.

Never R19, because they’re black, and these white assholes are cowards.

The author of that piece should get a life.

I can only imagine the comments from DLers about fat Goop if this came out now.

Holy shit R16. That's the funniest thing I've read on DL in weeks.