Shallow Hal
2001 film by Bobby Farrelly, Peter Farrelly
Shallow Hal is a 2001 American romantic comedy film directed by the Farrelly Brothers. The film stars Gwyneth Paltrow and Jack Black, with Jason Alexander, Joe Viterelli, and Susan Ward in supporting roles. Filming took place in various areas including Charlotte, North Carolina, and Sterling and Princeton, Massachusetts at Wachusett Mountain. The plot centers around a womanizer who, while under a hypnotic guise to only see a person's inner beauty, falls in love with a 300-pound woman.
Production for the film was moved ahead to be completed before July 2000, mainly to avoid conflicts with a threatened writer's strike from the Writers Guild of America. The Farrellys initially sought Garry Shandling to play the role of Mauricio in the film, but were unsuccessful and Alexander was cast in the role instead. For Paltrow's role as Rosemary, she was portrayed as both slim and fat in the film, wearing a specially designed 25-pound fat suit as well as prosthetic makeup. Paltrow would later express regret about taking part in the film's production.
Shallow Hal was released in the United States on November 9, 2001, by 20th Century Fox. The film was a box-office success, grossing $141.1 million against a $41 million budget.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Shallow Hal” is 2001 film by Bobby Farrelly, Peter Farrelly. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Shallow, film and Bobby, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “2001 film by Bobby Farrelly, Peter Farrelly” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1140935. VIAF identifies the subject as 214005841. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2001 and 2000.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Shallow Hal”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Shallow Hal primary sources, Shallow Hal archive and Shallow research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Shallow Hal”?
- How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Shallow Hal” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.