‘I Feel Pretty’ Review: Amy Schumer’s New Comedy Has Problems

Even before?it opened in theaters,?I Feel Pretty faced a?backlash. Following trailer dropped, some women voiced frustration over the casting of Amy Schumer inside of a role that presumes she’s so hideous a little head injury might make her feel beautiful. Those criticisms aren’t invalid: Schumer does participate in the privileges many American women don’t C she’s white, able-bodied, femme, and of average bodily proportions. But there are additional problems with I Feel Pretty beyond Schumer’s casting. The predictable comedy from writing-directing duo Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein (Never Been Kissed, He’s Not That Into You) efforts to tell a post about body positivity instead of pulls them back.

Schumer plays Renee, an IT?drone with the high-end cosmetics brand Lily LeClaire. Her lifetime isn’t awful, but she’s constantly reminded of her insecurities?round her appearance. When you shop, a sales girl informs her they just carry her size online. When she undresses at night, she disapprovingly scans her body from the mirror. As well as on her first journey to SoulCycle, Renee feels like an outsider surrounded by supermodel-types who gracefully hop onto their bikes as she clumsily smashes on the seat, ripping her pants.

I Feel Pretty hits on something relatable gets hotter finds the humor in Renee’s have trouible with her body, reflecting the realistic pressures and anxieties maded by a culture?that tells women they’re not skinny enough, hot enough, or fit enough. The premise is a smaller commentary of Schumer’s specific body or weight, and a lot more about precisely how people of varying physical structure may suffer shame and?body dysmorphia. I Feel Pretty uses that entry way to its Shallow Hal-like premise: after wishing she might be pretty over a stormy night, Renee falls off her SoulCycle bike and wakes up?to?begin to see the supermodel form of herself staring back at her.

Cue a few situations where Renee, now bursting with the boldness associated with a woman who actually loves herself (however loves a false prospect of herself), takes risks she never would’ve before. She offers a guy her number and asks him out. She enters a bikini contest. She applies dream job (which, mind you, is now being a receptionist). She comfortably eats whatever she would like, etc. All of this should be funny, not really owing to how Renee actually looks, except for how she behaves in bizarrely audacious ways no one, however hot, would C like when she strips completely naked on a first date to consider Ethan (Rory Scovel) a “sneak peek.”

Too bad none of it can be quite funny. Busy Philipps and Aidy Bryant as Renee’s friends provide the only laugh-out-loud moments, and?Michelle Williams?is delightful playing a cosmetics executive who acts like Miranda Priestly as a soft-voiced alien. The premise of I Feel Pretty works better?in the quick-hit comedy structure associated with an?Inside Amy Schumer sketch. Stretched across a nearly-two hour runtime, the joke gets old fast. Regardless of Schumer front and center, her comedic monologuing C a tirade about dating profile pics, a freakout out over how Emily Ratajowski’s organs fit inside her body C play like excerpts at a standup routine we’ve already seen.?It?just doesn’t mean, or justify, a feature-length film.

I Feel Pretty tries to add a creative twist into the classic makeover trope C a “normal” woman becomes “beautiful,” to finally realize that what really matters is what’s contained in the. The thing is, the movie doesn’t spend whenever telling us who Renee in fact is with this report, or developing her beyond her superficial desires. The only real time we determine what makes Renee so likable is where she enters a bikini contest and lists off her best nature C and honestly, I can’t even remember what those are. Kohn and Silverstein depict Renee being a woman defined by her vanity. Within a better movie, that can play like?a commentary about the toxicity in the beauty industry, and how deeply our insecurities can us consume us.?I Feel Pretty?is not that insightful.

The movie also makes Renee ridiculously naive. She’s jealous when a sleazy jerk hits on Ratajkowski’s Mallory, then can’t learn how a female who appears like Mallory could also get dumped, and she’s flattered when she thinks a construction worker whistles at her. In 2018, as the film sector is still reckoning while using revelations of your #MeToo and Time’s Up movements, a film when a woman wants for being catcalled and ogled by gross?dudes in order to feel validated feels incredibly ill-advised.

It’s virtually no spoiler to disclose that afterwards, I Feel Pretty follows the predictable road to girls teaching themselves to accept herself, and Renee finds happiness as she will be. I didnrrrt get it to get a second. Nothing is to guide?her sudden pivot, due to the fact her sense of self-worth is dependant an illusion. While Kohn and Silverstein’s film has some very nice intentions, I Feel Pretty is little greater daft commentary on cultural beauty standards that spends?to much time laughing with regards to the outside to ever place value on what’s within.

?