Shallow Hal

Shallow Hal arrived on November 9, 2001, directed by Peter and Bobby Farrelly, the brothers behind Dumb and Dumber. Jack Black played Hal, a shallow man hypnotized by Tony Robbins (playing himself) to see only the inner beauty of people around him. He falls hard for Rosemary, played by Gwyneth Paltrow, who wore a custom 25-pound fat suit and prosthetic makeup for the role. The close-ups of the heavier Rosemary were performed by Ivy Snitzer, a body double. The film cost $40 million and grossed $141.1 million worldwide—a genuine hit. Jason Alexander played Mauricio, Hal's friend whose secret is a vestigial tail.

Critics split 49% on Rotten Tomatoes, though Roger Ebert gave the film 3 out of 4 stars and found it often very funny. The film's premise aged poorly. Paltrow later called her experience in the suit a disaster, while Snitzer disclosed that the backlash and experience of performing in the role contributed to an eating disorder she developed afterward. The fat-suit comedy era—which Shallow Hal came to represent—reads very differently now, and the film serves more as a document of how Hollywood treated that kind of physical comedy than as a comedy that still lands.