What if we could all be at peak confidence 24/7? Would we finally manifest the lives we so often make excuses not to attain? If we see ourselves differently, will everyone else?
We can now forgive Amy Schumer for the lowbrow hijinks of 2016’s Snatched. Because while her new picture, I Feel Pretty, may be another high-concept star vehicle trading on Schumer’s wicked cynicism, it is also a smart essay on our collective definitions of beauty, its relationship to self-perception and success and a query into a number of obviously personal issues for its star, who proves there is nothing she won’t do for a laugh. And that she’s also got a lot of heart.
In a movie that incorporates—sometimes at the same time—slapstick, screwball and human comedy, Schumer is Renee Bennett, a web manager for a high-style Manhattan cosmetics empire named Lily LeClaire. Along with her down-on-his-luck, tech nerd coworker (Adrian Martinez), Renee is relegated to a Chinatown basement “office,” far from the organization’s tony, image-driven headquarters uptown.
Objectively, what’s Renee’s problem? She has a nice apartment, decent job and a solid pair of best girlfriends (Aidy Bryant, Busy Phillips), even if the trio are unable to get any views on their group meet-up app.
To start with, Renee hates her looks, and how she believes society perceives them. She sees herself forever an outsider to the many benefits and perks that women who look like co-star Emily Ratajkowski, a waif she meets at the neighborhood Soul Cycle and one whom men fall over, receive at every turn.
Inspired by the Tom Hanks transformation classic Big, Renee even wishes into a fountain that the fates will intervene and correct the cosmic joke she sees as her visage. But this doesn’t happen.
Instead, she suffers a humiliating SoulCycle accident after which she becomes convinced that she’s undergone a transformation to what she perceives as actual beauty. A dream come true, Renee suddenly feels socially acceptable, approved of and confident. And that’s the trick of the movie—we and everyone around her see the same old Renee, but she sees something different.
With looks like these, she thinks, the receptionist job at Lily LaClaire’s uptown corporate headquarters suddenly feels within reach. So does a date with nice guy Ethan (Rory Scovel) she picks up at the local dry cleaners. This radical change in perspective and attitude manifests great success in her career and love lives.
Lily LaClaire is owned by Lauren Hutton, employs Naomi Campbell and is overseen by glamorous CEO Michelle Williams, more than game in a rare comedic turn as a breathy, hapless magnate whose products aren’t selling to the average woman. Guess whose ideas about applicator brushes and women who shop at Target begin to turn things around?
It isn’t long before Renee is shaping product development and with success comes ego, alienating her from her former friends. But her newfound confidence attracts super hunk and perfect, would-be Prince Charming LaClaire son Grant (Tom Hopper). Dreams come true, but at a cost.
Written and directed by Abby Cohn and Marc Silverstein (Never Been Kissed, He’s Just Not That Into You), I Feel Pretty wants to have it both ways—broad, sometimes crass commercial comedy and sometimes thoughtful social commentary.
As a cultural essayist, Schumer is fearless and no one else is doing (or can do) what she is doing. I Feel Pretty speaks with authority on issues of self-perception, laws of attraction, ego and a host of mind-body-image incongruencies, all played by Schumer with a manic combination of alternating insecurities and hyperconfident, vampy excess. She skewers our obsession with pretty people for whom doors open widely and has fun with wallflower stereotypes as well, providing two substantive emotional moments, each about looking in the mirror.
Cynics will say Schumer’s on about the same thing yet again—but those who are fair will see a comedic performer operating from a place of real neuroses, all while recognizing the absurdity of such, and delivering layered comedy—slapstick, farce and human—with a joke or poignancy every minute.
3 stars.
