Stars: Gwyneth Paltrow, Jack Black, Jason Alexander, Joe Viterelli, Susan Ward, Kyle Gass, Laura Kightlinger

Director: Peter Farrelly

Summary: Hal's luck with the ladies changes when he is hypnotised into seeing the inner beauty of women.

Directors Peter and Bobby Farrelly continue their string of hilarious oddball comedies with SHALLOW HAL. Hal (Jack Black of HIGH FIDELITY) is a "regular guy" who has no luck with women because he only wants to be with women who look like supermodels. Then self-help guru Tony Robbins hypnotizes Hal so that he can see a woman's inner beauty. When Hal meets Rosemary (Gwyneth Paltrow), a Peace Corps volunteer who is smart and funny, he thinks his dreams have come true. Others, like Hal's slimy friend Mauricio (Jason Alexander), see Rosie for what she is, a 300-pound woman, but Hal can only see the beauty on the inside, so to him she looks like, well, Gwyneth Paltrow.
Black shines in his first starring role. His engagingly manic energy keeps the film in high gear. Paltrow skillfully plays Rosemary as an obese woman in a thin woman's body. The Farrelly brothers' comedies work so well because they mix off-the-wall humor with characters the audience identifies with and cares about. SHALLOW HAL is outrageous and funny, occasionally exceeding the bounds of good taste, but it's also a touching love story. Fans of Black's band, Tenacious D, will be happy to see bandmate Kyle Gass in a small role.

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After a succession of hugely successfully movies of a lower brow nature, Shallow Halfinds the Farrelly Brothers attempting a slightly more thoughtful film, albeit still tied up in their trademark toilet humour. It's an approach that is not unproblematic but not unsuccessful either, resulting in a film that engages the emotions in a manner that the likes of Dumb and Dumber, Kingpinand There's Something About Marynever suggested possible.

Jack Black is the Hal of the title, a man whose less than commendable attitude to women is suddenly altered by the rather credibility-stretching plot device of a chance meeting with a hypnotist. Henceforth Hal is only capable of seeing the beauty within, a development that allows for much humour at the expense of the less fortunate in the name of some sort of social comment. From it all, however, emerges a quite touching love story with Paltrow's character Rosemary and proof that the Farrellys do have something of a sensitive side--no matter how deep it may be buried. The ending may be woefully predictable, but such is the deftness of touch with which the story is told, that it is still the one we are all rooting for. This is a sickly sweet film in the truest terms.

On the DVD:Shallow Halcomes with a plethora of extras on disc, including a series of mini-documentaries and TV specials, all of which plug the film but offer very little insight. That does come, however, from the handily subtitled directors' commentary, which demonstrates clearly the clash of cultures occurring in the movie. As well as commenting on the physical appearance of every female cast member who passes before the camera, the brothers also pay touching tribute to a colleague who passed away during the shoot and seem to know the name of every single extra and crew member who worked on the project, surely a rarity in these days of big budgets and faceless studios. There is also a large selection of deleted scenes, also with added commentary, a perfunctory music video from Shelby Lynne and a documentary on some of the technical aspects of the film. --Phil Udell

Aspect Ratio:	1.85 Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	11 Deleted Scenes, Directors Commentary By The Farrelly Brothers, HBO Behind The Scenes Mini Documentary, 3 Featurettes, Music Video By Shelby Lynne, Theatrical Trailer, Easter Egg
Subtitles:	Croatian, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish, Turkish
Year:	2001
Release Date:	June 21, 2004
Runtime:	108 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	22971 D V D
Keywords:	Comedy, General, Wide, Screen, Romantic, Shallow, Hal
Genre:	Comedy