I Feel Pretty

I Feel Pretty

Starring Amy Schumer, Michelle Williams, Rory Scovel, Emily Ratajkowski

Directed by Abby Kohn & Marc Silverstein

The Story:
Renee Barrett (Amy Schumer) is a low-level worker for a high-brand cosmetics company, and she suffers from severe lack of confidence.  She sees her body as something to be reviled, she's meek and uninteresting, and often apologizes for everything.  She sees beautiful women getting everything they want, and she just wants to feel that beautiful.

One day at a spin cycle class, she bangs her head and is knocked unconscious.  When she comes to, she gains a newfound sense of confidence and sees herself as beautiful, even though she never went through any physical changes.  Now full of confidence, she gets a job in the cosmetics company as their new secretary, and draws the attention of her boss Avery LeClaire (Michelle Williams), who is looking to find a way to expand the brand by drawing in the "normal" woman.  Renee even gets a boyfriend in shy Ethan (Rory Scovel), and she grows in her confidence every day.

Soon her confidence grows to a point of snobbery, and she begins turning on her old friends and seeing herself as someone more important than them, and she then learns the lesson that she's always wanted to learn - beauty isn't just skin deep.

The Synopsis:
Amy Schumer has had a rough go in the world of comedy as of late.  Her latest comedy special on Netflix bombed, as did her film "Snatched" with Goldie Hawn last summer.  Even her last hit - "Trainwreck" - was way too long and drawn out, and Schumer became a one-note actor who focuses on self-deification and body image, so a film like "I Feel Pretty" should be right up her alley.  While the film did have moments of hilarity, it was too long for its own good, showing Schumer's character into an annoying light, and managed to jumble up its important message in a totally confusing manner.

Comedies are generally my least favorite genre, because they typically maintain the same style: we meet the characters, are introduced to their struggle, they find the most outrageous way to overcome that struggle, they turn to the dark side, learn a very important lesson, and return to the status quo.  "I Feel Pretty" follows that pattern to a T, but does so in a runtime that's almost double than what it should've been.  While dramas can last over two hours without skipping a beat, a comedy can hardly accomplish that same feat, because it requires the viewers to actually laugh throughout. There were many, many moments in the film where I wasn't laughing, and just wishing it would end - but it kept going.  A good comedy should last 90 minutes, but this one was at Judd Apatow levels of length (at almost two hours, it could've shed a good forty minutes to make it more lean and funny).

A film like this plays to Amy Schumer's strengths, as she often talks about her own body and how society sees her as a slightly overweight person (in reality, she doesn't look terrible, but compared to the skinny anorexic girls she's pitted against, you could make a case for it), and that's what more than half of this film does.  Basically, it's a modern day fairy tale, as Renee suffers a concussion that somehow re-wired her brain into giving her the confidence she's always had inside, but to her, she's a completely different person.  She feels her friends don't recognize her, and she hardly recognizes herself, even though she never went through any physical changes.  This leads to several moments of annoyance as she often comments on how beautiful she looks now, how ugly she was before, and so on, and so on.  While this drew the attraction of Ethan, I couldn't help but feel that if Renee was my friend, I would've dumped her after her newfound confidence because she was so annoying with it.

Surprisingly, Schumer's strongest work in the film came at the beginning, when she portrayed what it's like for many girls out there who suffer from lack of confidence.  She keeps her head low, doesn't talk to people, and isn't assertive at all because she sees herself as inferior to others around her.  It's almost heartbreaking because you know this is how millions of girls out there feel in their daily lives, and thankfully directors Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein don't play it for laughs, but shows a rare dramatic performance in Schumer.  Then she gets the confidence and becomes annoying Schumer again.

Out of all the actors in the film, it's Oscar-nominee Michelle Williams who surprisingly shines here.  Much like Tilda Swinton did in "Trainwreck," Williams completely transforms herself into a whole new character that's almost unrecognizable.  Best known for her dramatic performances, Williams finally is able to find her comedic center as the air-headed cosmetics company boss who doesn't seem to understand most of the things going on around her.  She glides through the screen with an air-raspy voice that she feels she needs to express herself, and despite being absolutely stunning, she too struggles with self-image.  A rare comedic moment for Williams, and as always, she totally owns it.

Near the end of the film, Schumer gives her "Braveheart" speech, the denouement moment where she's supposed to express the point of the film, but its her speech that seems to contradict everything she went through previously.  It adds to a sense of confusion in the film, where you don't understand the point they're trying to make.  Are you supposed to find confidence within yourself, or from the products used to turn your face into someone totally different?  A more important question - after sitting through this dragging film, are you supposed to care at all what meaning they were trying to convey?  The answer to that, is no.

The Summary:
Despite offering an important issue facing women today, "I Feel Pretty" is muddied in its own message, lasts longer than it should, and once again gives Amy Schumer an annoying character to portray.

The Score: C-