By JASON GUYER
iRate
“I feel pretty” are words associated with “West Side Story” and the musical number “I Feel Pretty.”
No, not Adam Sandler’s “Anger Management,” but “West Side Story.” It includes a musical number about that empowering feeling of feeling pretty, feeling comfortable about yourself.
Yet, in “West Side Story,” Maria sings “I Feel Pretty” because she is loved by a pretty wonderful boy.
In “I Feel Pretty,” Amy Schumer’s new film, Schumer aims to be more poignant with the ability to feel pretty than just over some boy.
In “I Feel Pretty,” Schumer plays Renee Bennett, a woman who struggles with feelings of insecurity and inadequacy on a daily basis. After suffering from a fall, she suddenly believes she is the most beautiful and capable woman on the planet. Empowered by her sudden confidence, she starts to live fearlessly and flawlessly.
“I Feel Pretty” is, well — to be blunt, not good.
Having never been a Schumer fan, I didn’t expect much from “I Feel Pretty” anyway. Amy Schumer is not funny, *gasp.*
The vulgar and belittling style of humor is never the way to go. Be funny by being smarter, not dumber. Especially when trying to convey a message about shaming people.
“I Feel Pretty” did surprise me in many ways. Especially with the relationship between Schumer’s Bennett and Ethan, her character’s boyfriend, played by Rory Scovel.
Somewhere near the two-thirds mark of “I Feel Pretty,” you get the character-learns-a-lesson moment, and the film nailed it.
In the theater, I thought to myself, I hope they do not make the male the centerpiece of a profound moment for the Bennett character. Too many movies do this, they have a female character in crisis and doubting herself and in comes the male character to say, “but I love you anyway,” or “I love you for you.”
“I Feel Pretty” had the opportunity to do this. It felt like the film was going to do this, but it did not and it was wonderful.
The single best moments in the film are these moments for the Schumer’s Bennett character.
One would would imagine why they chose the name “I Feel Pretty” for this film.
Profoundly a far more perspicacious feeling when someone says to themself that they feel pretty, than when someone else says they are pretty.
“I Feel Pretty” captures these moments. Never in a profound way or in a grand way, but the film does and it is the highlight of Schumer’s newest movie.
Again, though, “I Feel Pretty” is a bad movie. So bad, even, its feel-good messages like the one above get overshadowed.
Schumer is not at her comedic best and is not funny. Schumer needs another person to play off of, she works best with others around her.
“Snatched” was the best example of where the comedic stylings are bouncing back and forth between Schumer and Goldie Hawn.
Schumer may not be capable of being a full blown-lead in a movie, as one of her best friends Jennifer Lawrence is. Some actors just can’t carry an entire film.
Schumer’s abrasive style of comedy wears thin, like nails on a chalkboard. Funny the first time when people squirm, just annoying after that.
The biggest downfall is Schumer versus Schumer. Schumer the comedian versus Schumer the person.
Schumer’s comedy is belittling, sometimes to herself and sometimes to others.
This valid form of comedy for sure and many many comedians use it. Make fun of everything until someone laughs. It is just in direct opposition to such profound subject and ideals behind a film like “I Feel Pretty.”
Schumer herself is very outspoken about societal norms and concepts of beauty often with heavily feminist ideals of acceptance, and these are some of the messages conveyed by “I Feel Pretty.”
Instead of leaving the theater with feelings toward the film’s messages directed at how we see and treat beauty as a society, I left with a very different feeling or question.
Can you stand on your own soap box as you are kicking soap boxes out from under other people? It is something I feel “I Feel Pretty” also does, to the female model and male archetypes in the film.
The message is wonderful, but as a whole film “I Feel Pretty” is forgettable and not pretty, witty, or gay — and I pity any person who went to see it today.
IRATE SCORE: 2/5
Jason Guyer is an avid moviegoer and works in the Graphics Department at the Eagle Times. For questions or comments he can be emailed at [email protected]
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