First Hit: At times, very funny but was also a bit sluggish in getting to the point.
I’m not a big fan of Amy Schumer’s acting or humor. However, in this film there is an upgrade to her “I don’t care, take it or leave it” shtick because in this role she adds and portrays an honest air of humility.
As Renee Bennett, we see her working with Mason (Adrian Martinez) in a hidden on-line sales warehouse for a high-end cosmetics firm called Lilly LeClaire started by Lilly (Lauren Hutton) and run by her granddaughter Avery (Michelle Williams).
Because of a computer glitch, Renee has to physically deliver their online marketing reports to headquarters office which is in an elegant downtown NYC building. Walking into the office, the high-end, arrogant and exclusiveness of this company is put on full force. Everyone is perfectly shaped and quaffed. But it is when they open their mouths that the level of arrogance really comes out.
When she drops off the reports, she learns that the receptionist position is open and wishes that she could apply for and get the position. When she looks at the qualifications, she realizes she doesn’t quite fit the bill.
In her attempts to get into shape, she goes to a Soul Cycle. The stuff there is more of the same attitude but she also meets a young woman who is beautiful but also struggles from being seen for not who she is on the inside.
In an incident where she hits her head, she transforms her perception of herself and now sees herself as beautiful.
With this newfound perception, she applies for and gets the receptionist’s job. Her strength is her realness to everyday people and thinking about others. However, the downside is that she begins to think she’s better than her close friends, Jane (Busy Phillips) and Vivian (Aidy Bryant).
Slowly pushing away her friends with her new found positive self-esteem she also seduces a unconfident Ethan (Rory Scovel).
What Renee doesn’t know is that she is the same person physically that she was before she hits her head.
The film goes on to show how Renee’s down to earthiness helps the cosmetic company grow their new brand in stores like Target, but when she re-hits her head, she loses her perception of herself as a beautiful woman and tries to hide from her boss Avery, Ethan, and others.
There are very funny scenes, like when she’s seeing herself as beautiful for the very first time. The comments while looking in the mirror are hilarious. Also, it was funny when she enters a hot girl contest and almost wins. The Soul Cycle scenes are funny as well. However, I didn’t think Avery’s brother Grant’s (Tom Hopper) character was needed. There there are office scenes that didn’t add much to the film either.
Schumer was strong and I would say this was her best film yet. Williams character was oddly funny. She played a smart beautiful woman who had a very high-pitched voice. At times the character was difficult to understand but I liked her. Hutton was fantastic. It was great to see her in this role. Bryant and Phillips were very strong as Renee’s friends that both supported her and also guided her to look at how she was treating people. Scovel was fantastic. I loved his character and his slowly warming up to the power of Renee. Topper was good but I didn’t think his role was needed. Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein co-wrote and co-directed this film. Without knowing their process of co-directing, I can only suspect that the issues I had with the unevenness were because there may have been two visions of a single film.
Overall: Although unevenly paced, I liked many of the scenes and thought they were out-loud funny.