Click here to copy URL

Shallow Hal

2001

Peter Farrelly, Bobby Farrelly

Jack Black, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jason Alexander, Joe Viterelli ...

5.0

27,966

Comedy. Romance Following the advice of his dying father, Hal dates only women who are physically beautiful. One day, however, he runs into self-help guru Tony Robbins, who hypnotizes him into recognizing only the inner beauty of women. Hal thereafter meets Rosemary, a grossly obese woman whom only he can see as a vision of loveliness. But will their relationship survive when Hal's equally shallow friend undoes the hypnosis?

	Media	Author	Review
		Roger Ebert rogerebert.com	"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 (…) Rating: ★★★ (out of 4)"
		Richard Corliss Time	"Torpor sticks to the actors' feet like gum on a movieplex floor. Will Hal make you laugh? Fat chance."
		Philip French The Guardian	"After a ponderous start, the Farrellys eventually unveil their big dramatic idea rather slowly, but don't know where to take it (...) There are two or three amusing moments"
		Peter Travers Rolling Stone	"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 then to justify those laughs by saying it’s society’s fault"
		A. O. Scott The New York Times	"The Farrellys cunningly transform a series of fat jokes (...) into a tender fable and a winning love story."
		Paul Clinton CNN	"'Shallow Hal' is amusing at times. Paltrow, Black and Alexander all hit their marks, and deliver perfect comedic timing. But, as is often the case, if you've seen the trailer, you've seen the best of the movie"
		William Thomas Empire	"A bit hit and miss, and devotees of the siblings' more adolescent work might be left wanting. But its leads make it consistently enjoyable (…) Rating: ★★★ (out of 5)"
		Todd McCarthy Variety	"[It] has enough amusing and endearing moments (...) Amazingly, after five films, the Farrellys have not progressed one iota in the realm of technique"
		Scott Tobias AV Club	"The film might have worked had the Farrellys not treated the subject so broadly, or if they had included a few jokes in the final half-hour."

Return to movie

We encourage you to check the reviews' original sources. Intellectual property rights of these reviews belong to their authors and/or the correspondent media from which they have been extracted. If you'd like to help us to add more reviews to your favorite movies, just send us a message.