History Film / ShallowHal

* MrsFanservice: Rosemary is played by Gwyneth Paltrow, and has several scenes wearing dresses, short skirts or bikinis before Hal's hypnosis is undone.

* UglyGuyHotWife: Mrs. Shanahan, though overweight, is still prettier than her husband.

* StealthInsult: The bulk of this movie serves to be a backhanded compliment to unattractive people, basically saying their inner beauty compensates for their outer ugliness.

* GoldDigger: This is why Nurse Tanya Peeler, who is actually young and pretty, looks like an old crone to Hal. She's dating his friend,

* FreakinessShame: [[spoiler:Turns out Mauricio has a tail.]]Walt, solely because of his money, and even confesses to Rosemary that the timing of their relationship could not have been better, [[KickTheDog just after she had broken up with her boyfriend]] and just after he had sold his company [[ItsAllAboutMe and had all the time in the world to go shopping with her etc etc]], which is really a fancy way of saying she can now ''mooch'' off of him.

* DoubleStandard: Looking the way they do, Hal and Mauricio really shouldn't have such high expectations from women. Hal's coworkers, who ask him how he can act so shallow when he's "not that good-looking" himself. They both have legitimate {{Freudian Excuse}}s for their hypocrisy, though.

* DoubleStandard: Looking the way they do, Hal and Mauricio really shouldn't have such high expectations from women. They both have {{Freudian Excuse}}s for their hypocrisy, though. Hal was traumatized as a child by the death of his father, who demanded on his death bed that his son be utterly perfectionist when judging women. Mauricio [[spoiler:is redirecting a bottled-up inferiority complex. He has a physical deformity himself that he can't get rid of (a vestigial tail at the base of his spine), but has chosen to see it as a weakness.]]
** This trope is lampshaded by Hal's coworkers, who ask him how he can act so shallow when he's "not that good-looking" himself.

* MindRape: ''Unknowingly hypnotized?!''
** All Hal thought was that Tony Robbins did something to help him "score better with the ladies." He had no idea that it literally changed his vision.

* BrokenAesop: A film with an intended Aesop about how people should not be so shallow and judge people on the kind of person they are, not by how they look on the outside, but this loses some steam considering how many fat jokes it has at Rosemary's expense.

* FreakinessShame: [[spoiler:Turns out Mauricio has a tail.]]

* GoldDigger: This is why Nurse Tanya Peeler, who is actually young and pretty, looks like an old crone to Hal. She's dating his friend, Walt, solely because of his money, and even confesses to Rosemary that the timing of their relationship could not have been better, [[KickTheDog just after she had broken up with her boyfriend]] and just after he had sold his company [[ItsAllAboutMe and had all the time in the world to go shopping with her etc etc]], which is really a fancy way of saying she can now ''mooch'' off of him.

Hal Larson (Black) is a single guy with an unsatisfying dating life, due to the fact that -- having been [[FreudianExcuse unconsciously traumatized by his father's death at age nine]] -- he is one of the shallowest men in the world. Until one day when, trapped in an elevator with self-hep guru Tony Robbins, he is unknowingly hypnotized so that, every time he meets someone new from that point onward, he will see their "inner beauty" instead of their real appearance.

* DoubleStandard: Looking the way they do, Hal and Mauricio really shouldn't have high expectations from women. They both have {{Freudian Excuse}}s for their hypocrisy, though. Hal was traumatized as a child by the death of his father, who demanded on his death bed that his son be utterly perfectionist when judging women. Mauricio [[spoiler:is redirecting a bottled-up inferiority complex. He has a physical deformity himself that he can't get rid of (a vestigial tail at the base of his spine), but has chosen to see it as a weakness.]]

* DoubleStandard: Looking the way they do, Hal and Mauricio really shouldn't have high expectations from women. They do give them both {{Freudian Excuse}}s for their hypocrisy, though; Hal is traumatized by watching his father die when he was young, who demanded on his death bed that his son be utterly perfectionist when judging women. Mauricio [[spoiler:is redirecting a bottled-up inferiority complex. He has a physical deformity himself that he can't get rid of (a vestigial tail at the base of his spine), but has chosen to see it as a weakness.]]

** This trope is lampshaded in the film however by Hal's coworkers asking him how he can act so shallow when he's "not that good-looking" himself.

* ContrivedCoincidence: The movie is full of them, but the most prominent example is when Hal sees Rosemary for the first time (as slim-figured Gwyneth Paltrow, of course) walking into the clothing store, only to catch up with her and, after getting acquainted with her, later finds out she happens to be his boss's daughter.

* CutASliceTakeTheRest: Rosemary cuts off a "sliver" of a cake that's about 1/3 as big as the whole cake, and walks off munching on it like a Pringles chip.

* AccidentalKiss: Freed from the spell and having never seen Rosemary in her true form, Hal mistakes the Shanahans' housemaid Helga for Rosemary and kisses this woman rather sloppily. Hilariously enough, Helga doesn't seem to mind.

Hal Larson (Black) is a single guy with an unsatisfying dating life, due to the fact that -- having been [[FreudianExcuse unconsciously traumatized by his father's death at age nine]] -- he is one of the shallowest men in the world. Until one day when, trapped in an elevator with Tony Robbins, he is unknowingly hypnotized so that, every time he meets someone new from that point onward, he will see their "inner beauty" instead of their real appearance.

Most notably, he meets a woman named Rosemary (Paltrow) who, to him, looks like the most beautiful woman in the world because of her great inner beauty. In reality, however, she's extremely fat. It's not the only cognitive dissonance -- far from it -- but it's the one that made the trailers.

* AccidentalKiss: Having never seen Rosemary in her true form, Hal mistakes the Shanahan's housemaid Helga for Rosemary and kisses this woman rather sloppily. Hilariously enough, Helga doesn't seem to mind.

Creator/JackBlack plays Hal Larson, who, [[FreudianExcuse unconsciously traumatized by his father's death at age nine]], is one of the shallowest men in the world. Until one day when, trapped in an elevator with Tony Robbins, he is unknowingly hypnotized so that, every time he meets someone new from that point onward, he will see their "inner beauty" instead of their real appearance.

Most notably, he meets a woman named Rosemary, played by Creator/GwynethPaltrow who, to him, looks like the most beautiful woman in the world because of her great inner beauty. In reality, however, she's extremely fat. It's not the only cognitive dissonance -- far from it -- but it's the one that made the trailers.

* GoldDigger: This is why Nurse Tanya Peeler, who is actually young and pretty, looks like an old crone to Hal. She's dating his friend, Walt, solely because of his money, and even confesses to Rosemary that the timing of their relationship could not have been better, [[KickTheDog just after she had broken up with her boyfriend]] and just after he had sold his company [[ItsAllAboutMe and had all the time in the world to go shopping with her etc etc]], which is really another way of saying she can now ''mooch'' off of him.

* GoldDigger: This is why Nurse Tanya Peeler, who is actually young and pretty, looks like an old crone to Hal. She's dating his friend, Walt, solely because of his money, and even confesses to Rosemary that the timing of their relationship could not have been better, [[KickTheDog just after she had broken up with her boyfriend]] and just after he had sold his company [[ItsAllAboutMe and had all the time in the world to go shopping with her etc etc]], which is really another way of saying she can now MOOCH off of him.

* LiteralMetaphor: When Hal describes Ralph as "[[PrettyBoy Pretty Boy]]" to Rosemary while dining at a restaurant, he also alludes to the ''metaphorical'' halo around his head to reiterate how divinely handsome and good he is. But since Rosemary is unaware of Hal's hypnosis, she tells Hal that he's the first one to ever call Ralph that, and furthermore, she thinks the "halo" he's talking about is, in fact, the psoriasis around Ralph's head, and she even tells that to Hal directly.

* SlidingScaleOfBeauty: Quite notably scores pretty evenly around the scale. The nastier girls (and Rosemary in Hal's eyes) are very pretty, while some of the characters are just average or flawed average, perhaps flawed pretty, and some of the nice girls are honestly ugly. Rosemary's two guy friends from the Peace Corps are overweight and/or unattractive yet are seen as intimidatingly handsome to a hypnotized Hal and the seemingly healthy-looking kids from the hospital [[spoiler: turn out to be burn victims]].