I Feel Prettystars Amy Schumer as Renee, a woman who feels invisible in what she percieves to be not-prettiness. When she hits her head during a particularly brutal, life-changing SoulCycle class, she starts to see herself as the most traditionally beautiful woman in the world. No longer does she spend her time aspirationally doing YouTube makeup tutorials, but rather actively going for the job, man, and life she has always dreamed about. I Feel Pretty takes some of its narrative cues from Big, even paying homage to the Tom Hanks film at one point in the movie when a depressed Renee uses it as inspiration to make a coin-throwing wish to become beautiful. It’s a good instinct, but a homage that doesn’t work because of the two movie’s fundamental differences. In Big the fim’s boy protagonist is transformed into a 30-year-old man overnight. In I Feel Pretty, the film’s adult woman protagonist bumps her head and thinks she has transformed into a traditionally hotter version of herself overnight. One has proper fantasy elements; the other centers on a woman who suffers brain damage from the multiple head injuries she sustains over the course of the film. The fact that neither of Renee’s two friends (played by Aidy Bryant and Busy Phillips) sit her down to figure out exactly what is going on with her only undermines the apparent specialness of their relationships, something the movie tries to half-heartedly call on in its climax. Renee, our protagonist, is often the butt of the joke, and it doesn’t feel good. Even at her most unlikeable, Schumer’s character in Trainwreck was relatable. She was flawed, but in a recognizable way. We were on her side, even when she was making bad choices. Renee is a cariacture, far better suited for a one-off comedy sketch than a feature film. She also comes off like a self-involved, delusional idiot, which is not a great look for a movie purportedly working to subvert the ridiculous stereotype that beautiful women and women who care about beauty must also be dumb. I Feel Pretty has its moments of insightful subversion, though they are too few and far between. Renee’s sensitive, insightful love interest, Ethan (Rory Scovel), pushes against the rigid boundaries of masculinity in some interesting ways, touching on the fact that our society’s gender norms put men in a box as much as they do women. Michelle Williams plays a weird, whispy-voiced makeup mogul in a delightful supporting role that is more fun than filling. Ultimately, I Feel Pretty is much too narrow in its scope of womanhood and its exploration of a very important, topical subject to succeed. Almost all of the women who inhabit this world are white, affluent, and conform to gender norms. The most “subversive” of its female characters comes in the form of Renee’s friend Jane (Busy Philipps), who is treated like a pariah by a snobby Renee for daring to show up to a date without wearing makeup or doing her hair. It’s unclear if a film with this kind of high-concept, hard-to-swallow premise could have ever been salvaged. While there is something to be said about the power of self-perception and confidence, I Feel Pretty too often treats sexism like an individual problem to be overcome with a pep talk and some contouring, rather than the complex, systemic-based discrimination it truly is. This subject matter demands better.
title: “I Feel Pretty Review” ShowToc: true date: “2025-07-03” author: “Dacia Hill”
Schumer plays Renee, a website manager whose big ambitions are stymied by her insecurity over her appearance. Despite the reassurance of her best friends Vivian (Aidy Bryant) and Jane (Busy Philipps), she hates the way she looks and even resorts to wishing to be beautiful at a fountain during a thunderstorm, after a late night viewing of a certain Tom Hanks movie. The problem with these body-centric comedies is usually that they resolve in a message about how it’s what’s inside that counts, but most of their laughs come from showing up its characters in contrast to conventional beauty standards. So it goes here, complete with cameos from supermodels Naomi Campbell and Emily Ratajkowski to reinforce the norm, without doing enough to subvert it. To their credit, writer-directors Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein do a good job of rounding out the supporting cast (they generously give Ratajkowski’s character an inner life over a number of scenes, even if she’s never actually named on-screen) and make it clear that everyone has the same kind of hang-ups as the protagonist. We’ve all had days where we don’t feel so hot, and the script smartly and gently burrows into several of the other characters to explore their weaknesses too. Nowhere is that more apparent than in a setpiece where the newly embolded Renee enters a wet t-shirt competition. Sure, she doesn’t look like her fellow competitors, but as an idea, that’s only actually funny if you’re laughing at her rather than with her, and it doesn’t really sit right. Overall, the film doesn’t do nearly enough with the really funny idea that Renee is convinced that she’s undergone a magic transformation, because she hardly tells anybody else. And for 110 minutes, it’s just not that funny. That is, with the exception of Michelle Williams. She plays Avery LeClaire, the cosmetics company heiress whose weakness is that she sounds like an idiot, or at least she reckons she does. As with Renee, the film isn’t making her the object of fun because she’s ditzy, but because she’s very intelligent and accomplished, but confidence issues that come from her having the voice of a My Little Pony character. Williams is the standout performer by a mile, but as a film, I Feel Pretty winds up in a predicament similar to its characters. It is a very broad 12A comedy, and despite its big heart and thoroughly decent intentions, it doesn’t feel like itself when it’s angling for laughs. It would be great to have liked this more for what it is, in keeping with its agreeable message, but sadly, it falls flat. I Feel Pretty is in UK cinemas now.
