Wednesday, September 18, 2024

Film Review: Uglies

Meaningful messaging wrapped in predictable plotting

Decades ago, the television series The Twilight Zone presented an episode called “Eye of the Beholder” in which a disfigured woman gets a chance to have plastic surgery to become beautiful. Throughout the episode, we never fully see the faces of the characters until the very end. And, in traditional Twilight Zone form, there’s a twist in the reveal. Last year, the film Barbie gave us a thoughtful, poignant exploration of the pressure of unrealistic beauty standards that left women around the world cheering. The new Nexflix film Uglies is the latest story to tackle the concept of beauty. However, unlike its predecessors, the positive messaging in Uglies gets a bit tangled in the execution.

Uglies is based on Scott Westerfeld’s 2006 middle grade novel set in a future dystopian society where children are required to undergo cosmetic surgery to become beautiful (“Pretties”) when they turn sixteen. Until then, teens who have not yet had the surgery are called “Uglies.” Once the surgery occurs, the beautiful ones get to live in a perpetual frat party in the futuristically cool Pretty City (yes, that’s the name). How exactly does this help society? According to the backstory, the old world destroyed itself with overuse of fossil fuel, environmental pollution, and wars. Beautiful people had unfair advantages over ugly people and people had conflicts based on physical appearances. To solve this problem, everyone is made beautiful. This setup comes from the source material, but it’s confusing for appearance-based conflicts to be solved by making everyone look like the primary discriminators. Also, the racial and ethnic differences continue after the surgery, so it requires a willing suspension of disbelief to theoretically create peace by turning everyone into Balenciaga models. Of course, we eventually find out there is more to the surgery than just creating facial symmetry, and eventually the story slides into The Stepford Wives territory.

The film follows protagonist Tally Youngblood (Joey King) as she anxiously awaits her turn to become pretty while she attends the boarding school for Uglies. In flashbacks, we see her long-term, close friendship with her bestie Peris (Chase Stokes), who is a few months older than her. The two promise to remain best friends for life, and Peris promises to visit her after his surgery. However, when the story opens, Peris has been transformed and now has cut off communications with Tally. Tally engages in low-stakes shenanigans, like sneaking into New Pretty City to see him, but on a return trip she encounters a new friend: Shay (Brianne Tju), who tells her about an alternative, surgery-free community outside the city (called The Smokes), run by a mysterious leader called David. When Shay disappears, Tally gets caught up in the government’s search, led by the cruel and severe Dr. Calder (Laverne Cox), for David and the Smokes community.

Although the story has several departures from the novel, the film is entertaining in a low-stakes way. The special effects of the hover skateboarding are fun, and the visuals of the dystopian community and the gorgeous scenery of Tally’s journey to the Smokes is appealing. The acting from all the leads is solid and engaging throughout the film. The problem is the plot. There are so many incongruities that eventually they become distracting. For example, except for Peris, the appearance differences between the existing Uglies and the existing Pretties ranges from minimal to non-existent. Tally’s new bestie Shay is supermodel gorgeous despite being an “Ugly.” When Tally gets to the Smoke, outsiders David (Keith Powers) and his best friend Croy (Jan Luis Castellanos) look like they fell out of GQ. A few characters undergo the long-discussed surgery during the film. Again, with the exception of Peris, the big glow-up amounts to an anti-climactic addition of department store makeup and a quick trip to the salon for clip-ins. Anyone who understands the concept of mascara and lipliner will be rolling their eyes at the “change.” If this were a stage play, it would be understandable. But the unwillingness to take visual risks in a big-budget Netflix film is a little disappointing. The only character who stands out as particularly changed or uniquely “pretty” is Peris. Between the makeup and the special effects, he manages to look artificially chiseled, with razor-sharp cheekbones, piercing eyes, and a perpetual William Shatner in Star Trek glow about him. His visual is the best example of what creepy, out of control beauty would look like. The similarity in attractiveness between Pretties and Uglies may be an intentional choice in the film, perhaps designed to be an ironic social commentary on the relativism of beauty. If so, the premise of the story, that universal beauty eliminates societal problems, becomes irrelevant.

In addition to the lackluster visuals, the plot itself is problematic. David, who is a likeable classic hero/prophet/leader archetypal character, falls too suddenly in love with Tally, almost at first sight, and certainly too shortly after meeting her. The acting is fine, but the behavior is inconsistent with both David’s reputation as a sharp, elusive, pragmatist and with their short and relatively meaningless relationship. Tally’s character is also inconsistent. She is initially presented as inquisitive, rebellious, and fierce, but she is simultaneously whiny, cowardly, and indecisive. Teen emotions are complicated, but by the end of the film it was hard to take her character seriously. Joey King’s acting is solid and appealing, but some of the cliché lines she is forced to recite were eyeroll-worthy.

If you are expecting a Barbie-esque discourse into the superficiality of societal standards, or commentary on racism and sexism, this is not that film. Uglies is a traditional middle grade/YA dystopian adventure where the grown-ups are bad, besties betray you, the rebel-boy is boyfriend material, and in the end, you finally find your true self. Depending on what you are in the mood for, this may be the perfect low-stress film for you.

Nerd Coefficient: 6/10.

Highlights

  • Appealing actors
  • Incongruous plot and visuals
  • Perfectly fine background entertainment

POSTED BY: Ann Michelle Harris – Multitasking, fiction-writing Trekkie currently dreaming of her next beach vacation.