Good Luck Chuck isn’t quite Shallow Hal, but it’s darned close. In the gross-out comedy film written by Josh Stolberg, a single man named Charlie (Dane Cook) has been unable to experience true love his entire life, due to a curse placed on him as a child by an angry 10-year-old Goth girl. As a result of the curse (shown in a brief introductory scene) now 25 years later, every woman he beds immediately meets and marries the man of her dreams.
This condition makes him irresistible to women, except the one that he desires, the beautiful, but clumsy Cam (Jessica Alba). In order to break the curse so he can experience true love, he must be physically intimate with a morbidly obese woman with an unpleasant skin condition and an even more unpleasant personality. His short and stocky, foul-mouthed friend Stu (Dan Fogler), alternately helps and hinders his romantic pursuits.
Chuck and Hal
In the earlier 2001 Farrelly Brothers’ gross-out comedy Shallow Hal, which also begins with a brief childhood scene, a single man (Jack Black) has been unable to experience true love his entire life, due to the drug-induced deathbed rant of his father. A victim of his own shallow behavior, he gets hypnotized by a self-help guru to externalize the inner beauty (or ugliness) of each woman he meets.
This condition makes him irresistible to (less attractive) women. He falls in love with a clumsy, morbidly obese woman (Gwyneth Paltrow) whose inner beauty convinces his hypnotized mind that she’s gorgeous on the outside, too. In order to break the spell, he must come to grips with his shallowness and love her despite her size. His short and stocky, foul-mouthed friend (Jason Alexander) alternately helps and hinders his romantic pursuits.
Romance and Comedy
Despite sharing some of Shallow Hal’s storyline and upping the raunch-factor to There’s Something About Mary proportions, Good Luck Chuck does have its own special moments. Most of the office scenes with dentist Charlie and Stu, his neighboring cosmetic surgeon friend, while venturing into the unethical also veer into the comical. Their easy camaraderie and Stu’s perverted sexual preferences make for some of the film’s more consistent laughs. One especially memorable scene with humor, sensitivity, and depth involves Charlie visiting the Goth girl – now grown up with a potential young Goth girl of her own – and pleading for release from the curse.
Alba does her best to combine awkwardness with beauty (as dictated by the role of a klutzy penguin specialist), but her beauty will likely be appreciated more than her tiresome pratfalls. Though derivative of other date movies and plagued with uneven humor, Good Luck Chuck pushes the R-rating to its limits with a few very funny scenes – and one huge laugh that will have you shuddering in sympathy and shrieking with laughter simultaneously.
- Good Luck Chuck
- Director: Mark Helfrich
- Run time: 96 minutes
- Rating: R (strong sexual content, crude dialogue, nudity, drug use)
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