Shallow Hall (2001) vs. 7abibi na2eman (2009)

I never had the chance to see “Shallow Hall” before yesterday and i decided to do so, to see the difference between it and it’s Egyptian version “7abibi na2eman”… and the exact difference is the word SHALLOW … Shallow Hal 2001 is not the best movie u can see… it’s not a hit of course but u can never consider it a bad movie  !  More over, i cannot call any of them a real comedy that makes you laugh out loud. However, i am here comparing how the plot was treated in both versions.

the plot of the movies, is a superficial man, who sets high PHYSICAL standards in the woman he wants, suddenly fall in love with a 300 pound girl just for her inner beauty.

In the English version, Hal (jack black) meets some self -help guru who hypnotizes him to stop being shallow and look deeper when he sees a woman to see the real beauty inside her … Hal meets Rosemary (Gwyneth Paltrow) an obese who is really kind and nice, and is volunteering in many charity work , the idea is he never saw her fat, he saw her slim and fit and thus he got attracted to her and started to know about her inner beauty.. His friend Mauricio (Jason Alexander) didn’t understand what happened to his pal and thus went to the self -help guru to understand what happened, and he gave the guru he impression that he is losing his friend and that Hal is losing his job and life and so he got the words that return Hal to his shallowness.
At this point, we discover that Hal saw the really ugly people (men and women) as pretty,  only if they were good from the inside, but saw the  the beautiful people as really ugly because they are bad from the inside …  u will be touched at that point of the movie, specially when he meets the little girl at the hospital. and of course the movie ends with Hal and rose getting married …

In the Egyptian version, Ramez (7’aled abou el naga) accidentally drinks a spell that was supposed to be put for another guy in order to fall in love with Nesma (Mai 3ezz el din). The spell was to make the guy see only Nesma’s  inner beauty.. he fall in love and they were about to get engaged when the spell effect ended, and he discovered the truth, he evaluates the whole relation and discovers how beautiful Nesma is despite her weight and they marry each others .

From my opinion, the Egyptian version of the movie is superficial and related the whole inner beauty thing to only the women you are attracted to , however the English movie  gave us the reality that we need to look at everyone around us deeply to see how beautiful it is from the inside. there are people around us u start mocking, making fun of or just avoiding to deal with, just because you think they are different; Obese, Gays, Lesbians, Elderly, those having birth or genes  defects.

I enjoyed watching the English version, and i can’t deny that i smiled while watching the Egyptian one on a dark night trying to find something to entertain me. but the question is why not be entertained and moved at the same time … this is what the Egyptian movies usually misses, specially when quoting an American movie !