Shallow Hal

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Shallow Hal
Shallow Hal movie poster
Directed by	Farrelly brothers
Produced by	Farrelly brothers Bradley Thomas
Written by	Farrelly brothers Sean Moynihan
Starring	Jack Black Gwyneth Paltrow Jason Alexander Joe Viterelli
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date(s)	November 2, 2001
Running time	113 minutes
Language	English
Budget	~ US$40,000,000
IMDb profile

Shallow Hal is a 2001 romantic comedy film starring Gwyneth Paltrow as Rosemary Shanahan, Jack Black as Hal Larson and Jason Alexander as Mauricio. Co-starring in the film are Rene Kirby, Joe Viterelli, and Brooke Burns. In addition, motivational speaker Tony Robbins has a small role as himself. Jack Black's ex-girlfriend, Laura Kightlinger, and Tenacious D bandmate, Kyle Gass, have supporting roles, with Molly Shannon, Ron Darling and Bruce McGill in cameo roles. It was directed by Peter Farrelly and Bobby Farrelly, and filmed in Charlotte, North Carolina as well as Sterling, Massachusetts and Holden, Massachusetts.

1 Plot summary
2 Cast
3 Trivia
4 External links

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

A shallow man named Hal (Black) meets Tony Robbins while stuck in an elevator. Robbins hypnotises him into seeing people's inner beauty, not their external selves. Subsequently he falls in love with Rosemary (Paltrow), an obese woman who appears to him to look slender and beautiful.

His friend Mauricio (Jason Alexander) is not satisfied with Hal's new taste in women, and he talks to Robbins and has Hal un-hypnotized. Discovering that his own sight had misled him, Hal begins to avoid Rosemary. She becomes melancholy and decides to leave the country to join the peace corps. During his search for Robbins to get 're-hypnotised', he finds that Mauricio himself has his own reason for being shallow: he has a vestigial tail which has prevented him from ever getting close to a woman. Hal eventually comes to terms with his feelings and his shallowness and makes up with Rosemary. He discovers he still loves her and decides to accompany her on her trip.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Cast

Gwyneth Paltrow .... Rosemary Shanahan
Jack Black .... Hal Larson
Jason Alexander .... Mauricio Wilson
Joe Viterelli .... Steve Shanahan
Rene Kirby .... Walt
Bruce McGill .... Reverend Larson
Anthony Robbins .... Tony Robbins (as Tony Robbins)
Susan Ward .... Jill
Zen Gesner .... Ralph Owens
Brooke Burns .... Pretty/Ugly Katrina
Rob Moran .... Tiffany, Manly Hostess

[edit] Trivia

In an interview with The Guardian on 27 January 2006, Paltrow admitted that Shallow Hal was in the category of "shite" films that she made only for money. [1]
Black admitted that he "sold out" by starring in this film. He stated that he was eager to work with the Farrelly Brothers but the film turned out to be different than he had anticipated. "I wasn't proud of it, and I got paid a lot of money, so in retrospect it feels like a sell-out."[2]
At one point Hal makes an odd reference to knowing a kid from Hawaii who tried out for the hockey team, and that it was "Funny as shit". This is almost certainly a reference to the movie Airborne which features Jack Black as a student at a school where a surfer kid from Hawaii shows up and tries out for the hockey team.
Celebrated film critic Richard Roeper picked this as the tenth best film of 2001.
Rapper Project Pat did a spoof of this movie in his music video "Back Clap (Make Dat Thang Clap)"
Jason Alexander's character turns down a women whose second toe is longer then her big toe. This is a reference to the Seinfeld episode "The Tape" where George inquires on his joke about the second toe becoming the leader of the toes when it's larger than the big toe.
To prepare for her role, Gwyneth Paltrow went undercover by going out to a bar wearing the same latex "fat suit" she used during filming. She was reportedly treated extremely rudely, and people avoided making eye contact with her. She later said she felt saddened by the experience and at the injustice & double-standard overweight people faced.