One of the keys to enjoying the modest pleasures of I Feel Pretty is allowing yourself to go along with the extremely high concept. You don’t just have to believe that, after a severe whack on the head, the supposedly average looking Renee Bennett (Amy Schumer) believes herself to be supermodel gorgeous. You also have to believe that no one—not her baffled best friends (Aidy Bryant and Busy Philipps), not the judgy receptionist at the gym (Sasheer Zamata), not any of the many people she boasts to about her intimidating beauty—attempt to disavow her of this folly. If you can go along with that—along with other leaps of faith like, If Renee thinks she’s suddenly a sample size, why do all her old clothing fit?—the film has its charms.
When we first meet Renee she works for the high-end cosmetics company Lily LeClair, but not at their glamorous 5th Avenue offices. Instead, she toils alongside long-suffering IT guy Mason (a funny Adrian Martinez) in a Chinatown basement. She believes that it’s her looks that are holding her back and she fantasizes about what it must be like to be “undeniably gorgeous.” One SoulCycle mishap later and Renee emerges thinking her fantasy has come true. Suddenly, she gets the receptionist job at the Lily LeClair headquarters—she’s hired by the company’s squeaky-voiced celebutante owner, Avery (Michelle Williams)—and she picks up a cute, shy guy at the dry cleaners (Rory Scovel). She even gets her flirt on with Avery’s dashing, playboy brother (Tom Hopper).
The relationship with dry cleaner guy, whose name is Ethan, is one of the more endearing elements of the film. He’s impressed by her forwardness and appreciative of the way she takes charge, both on dates and later, in the bedroom. It never occurs to Ethan that Renee is concussed and delusional. He sees her as she sees herself—a total knockout. There’s a sneakily positive message here: Guys can be insecure, too; Renee’s boldness gives them both confidence.
But one of the film’s biggest problems is that the new Renee can be kind of a jerk. She blows off her gal-pals to go to an exclusive club and is derisively cruel to a plain looking woman who shows up at Lily LeClair, much in the way she was treated before her “transformation.” It’s hard to root for someone who, within weeks of thinking she’s a hot babe, turns into a bonafide mean girl.
Even before its release, I Feel Pretty generated a lot of controversy in the Twittersphere for its apparent cluelessness about Renee’s privilege. Because no matter how you slice it, Amy Schumer is an able-bodied, blonde, long-legged white woman. And no matter how many times Renee calls herself fat, a little belly pooch is not the same as actual obesity. (A scene where she boldly enters a bikini contest isn’t quite as outrageous as the film seems to think—Renee looks perfectly respectable in her two-piece.) What Schumer has argued is that it was never about how Renee actually looks, but always about how she perceived herself. This is mostly true—and, like I said, it’s heartwarming that Ethan thinks she’s the most gorgeous woman in the world—but pre-transformation Renee made babies cry, was sneered at by clerks at trendy boutiques, and was ignored by hipster bartenders and men in general (one man trying to pick up her model friend actually calls Renee “sir”). So basically, the film wants to have its fat-shaming jokes and its message of female empowerment, too. Not totally sure those can comfortably co-exist.
Still, Schumer is always funny and incredibly game in such things. It’s entertaining to watch Renee’s unshakeable faith in her newfound pulchritude. And Michelle Williams, with a high-pitched voice and wide, unblinking eyes that suggest she’s always on the lookout for some unseen paparazzi, almost sneakily steals the show.
I Feel Pretty is marketing itself to a female audience: “I Feel Pretty . . . ready for a good time!” reads one promotional slogan. “I Feel Pretty . . . excited for girls’ night out!” reads another. Indeed, the women I saw it with at my press screening were hooting and hollering and truly enjoying themselves. The truth is, there is something refreshing about a rom-com that stars a woman who feels relatable. You can point out the hypocrisies of I Feel Pretty all you like, but in Hollywood, where a “Plain Jane” is generally a modelesque beauty in an oversized sweater and glasses, the film could almost count as progress.