From the overzealous caricature to the underdeveloped plot, this film seeks to validate the slightly overweight by suffocating them with overt Amy’s body-image messages. It plays like propaganda. Like the catchy but unfortunate “If you’re happy and you know it” tune that that one famous weight loss business reworded to say “If you’re lonely, eat your feelings, have a snack.” This too-long promo glazes over after the lingering pre-credits intro. Force-feeding an I’m-ok-you’re-okay-no-matter-what-we-look-like quickly turns to shaming as the hotter, mean girls tower in the hierarchy over less attractive smarter girls. This is the one way Amy balks the stereotype: her character is also not smart nor a good friend.
Amy Schumer’s poster girl attempt falls short because she is not ugly enough to pull it off. She’s lovely. It’s her insecurity that’s the turn-off. She makes a 13-going-on-30 Zoltar-Tom-Hanks’-Big wish in a femme fountain, hits her head and wakes up Feeling Pretty. Unlike Gwyneth’s fat suit film (Shallow Hal 2001), we don’t see that alter-Amy. She just shifts to her super confident self with the low low aspirations of front desking for beauty products mean moguls.
The bright spots are the co-stars when they get a word in – friends proposing group dates and the heart-of-gold tech nerd bf at Zumba.
It’s another Devil Wears Prada without the smart story, snappy writing, likable mentor, or plot arc. It’s just every screen Amy, all of Amy, too much of Amy. It’s gratuitous Amy.
In an era when Krasinskis are making smaller budget almost silent films with beauty and intrigue in every shot, movies like this feel so made-for-tv poor that holding the stub feels like an insult to art.
Splatter: on FILM 