| Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... |
INTRODUCTION
For Joey King, one of the stars of the movie adaptation, Tally Youngblood has been a dream role in her head for years because she is an avid fan of the book series titled Uglies.
She plays the character of Tally Youngblood when she was 15 years old in the movie, though she is 25 years old at the time of the film’s release.
Uglies (2024) is a science fiction drama directed by McG and written by Jacob Forman, Vanessa Taylor, and Whit Anderson. The screenplay is adapted from the novel by Scott Westerfeld. Among others, the film features Joey King, Keith Powers, Chase Stokes, Brianne Tju, Jan Luis Castellanos, Charmie Lee, and Laverne Cox.
The film wias released by Netflix on September 13, 2024. It runs for 1 hour and 40 minutes. The movie is rated PG-13 for some violence, action, and brief strong language.
UGLIES (2024) OFFICIAL TRAILER
WHAT IS UGLIES ABOUT?
In this future, post-scarcity, dystopian world, humanity has conquered hunger, poverty, and resource shortage. Society has evolved to be so fixated on appearance that it develops a system wherein every person is considered “Ugly” until they are transformed by an extreme cosmetic surgery at age 16 into a “Pretty.”
This is not an operation for beauty but a radical, state-enforced operation that reshapes the face and body to a homogenized ideal of beauty. Apart from that physical change, the surgery deceitfully changes the brain to make individuals behave and turn “Pretties” into more submissive, light-hearted, and empty-headed people.
The protagonist, Tally Youngblood, will only turn sixteen years old. She wants that operation, which would make her a stunning Pretty in a part of the city known as New Pretty Town, where they spend all their time.
But before the operation, she meets Shay, a defiant girl who opens her eyes to the possibility that this surgery is not a gift but a means of control. Shay tells Tally about this secret community called Smoke, where people don’t get the surgery.
Torn between trying to fit in and having more and more doubts about the system, Tally is forced into a moral dilemma when the authorities herein referred to as Specials give her a hard choice: she can either betray Smoke and show them where it is or have the surgery denied to her and be “ugly” forever in society’s opinion.
As Tally moves into the Smoke, she not only gets entrenched in the movement, but she also questions everything about her society: the value of physical perfection, the manipulation of free will, and the ultimate cost of individuality.
She learns on the way that beauty is relative, and that what lies hidden behind the government’s passion for sameness is something infinitely worse. It is not merely cosmetic surgery but a means of maintaining the control of the population to keep them in order, drawing them into compliance with the system.
MY THOUGHTS ON UGLIES (2024)
The movie Uglies is adapted from the trendy YA dystopian novel by Scott Westerfeld. In common with many such adaptations, it boasts a conceptually ambitious idea coming onto the screens, discussing beauty, societal pressure, and control in a post-apocalyptic world.
This film, however, despite the potential, got many things wrong in its delivery, as I will discuss later.
On paper, this sounds pretty good. The protagonist, Tally Youngblood, is a 15-year-old girl who lives in a future where every person undergoes surgery at the age of 16 to become “pretty”-basically, to be accepted within societal norms.
It speaks to a very relevant discussion on beauty standards, but unfortunately, it doesn’t quite live up to what it could be.
UGLIES (2024) FILM REVIEW
CHARACTER PERFORMANCE
The lead character of Tally is played by Joey King, who, although a great actor, seems to have the wrong place in this movie about teenagers. The character of Tally at the script level is a young, innocent one; however, even the great acting skills of Joey King fail to portray that delicate 15-year-old girl we expected from her character.
Chase Stokes, who plays her friend David, is also a bit too old for his role. This casting itself takes me out of the experience. Everything about the performances feels so forced and incredibly exaggerated; it makes the characters less relatable than they should feel.
One of the most crucial problems with the movie is how the characters feel so disconnected from the world in which they exist. While Tally is the story’s protagonist, her insight into the world is superficial, and little depth is given to other characters.
For example, the villain, who should be a point of tension, isn’t all too believable. There’s something deeply unsettling regarding how the theme of being trans is stitched subtly into the villain’s backstory, almost as if it’s villainized, adding an unnecessary awkwardness to the story.
VISUAL DESIGN AND CINEMATOGRAPHY
Visually speaking, Uglies does have its moments. The futuristic world is cheery and spotless, far from what the ugliness in the title implies.
It even does a good job of submerging us into this post-apocalyptic world with some fun special effects, especially those within the city.
The “pretties”-the citizens who have had surgical enhancements sleekly designed, and the glowing suits and wide-eyed faces evoke a kind of artificial perfection peculiar to this film.
However, the CGI does not always work. The hoverboard scenes could have been so cool and felt old, like early 2000s effects. It feels joltingly incongruous with films today.
These include a few cool action sequences that are very Matrix-like or Star Wars – esque, where characters do superhuman things, defying the laws of physics.
While fun to see on screen, they lower the believability of the world since there was no explanation by the movie as to how these characters can even do such feats.
WRITING STYLE AND STORY
Due to how fast everything moves in this movie, almost too fast, it is quite hard to attach to the characters on an emotional level.
Everything takes a comeback to major plot holes that had me scratching my head. For example, there’s some cool technology with things like hoverboards and some sort of protective bracelets, but it doesn’t explain how it fits into the greater world.
Only Tally and David have this gadgetry, which feels more like the movie pulls a lot of rabbits out of its hat when saving them from trouble.
There are a few major problems with this movie, but one of them is that the back story just isn’t given enough screen time.
We hear the world has experienced some kind of global catastrophe and the only solution has been to surgically enhance everyone so that they all look alike, for peace, but it’s skimmed over with such a weak explanation. How does the idea of making everyone “pretty” fix the problems of society?
It is a very interesting concept that could have gone pretty deep, but instead, it is just actually skimmed through.
THEMES
At the very core, Uglies tries to tackle important messages regarding standards of beauty, identity, and societal conformity. In a world obsessed with perfection, it begs the question of how far we should go in changing ourselves for our acceptance into society. This is a film about self-discovery in which Tally questions what it truly means to be “ugly” or “pretty.”
This message is particularly apt today, where cosmetic surgery and body modification are becoming ever more common. The movie subtly critiques our current beauty culture and the important conversation that needs to be undertaken.
But these themes just don’t land with the intensity they could have. It barely scratches the surface of such concepts without going deeper into either their emotional or social implications.
CONCLUSION
In the end, Uglies is fun in a way where it is something one can watch in the background without focusing too much, but it doesn’t quite make any real impact.
The world is poorly structured, the characters are disconnected, and important plot holes become rather hard to ignore. The film does have its entertaining moments, specifically for one who enjoyed the genre of dystopia; it didn’t have that fresh and new quality to it.
At the same time, fans of the books may find themselves disappointed by everything that has been changed or left out. If you’re new to the story, you’ll likely find it an entertaining, though mostly flawed, experience that never quite reaches its full potential.
Where Uglies could have been something more of a barbed attack against beauty standards in a dystopian future instead easily settles into the comfortable rhythms of YA adaptations: over-reliant on familiar tropes and visuals rather than mining its ripe premise for all it’s worth.
It’s good enough to pass the time, but those looking for a more cerebral film might find this one a bit wanting.
People also read – Matt Walsh ‘Am I Racist?'(2024) Release Date, Casts, Trailer And Everything You Need To Know
The image used in this work belongs to the respective movie and its copyright holders. We do not claim any legal rights or ownership over this image, and we appreciate the movie’s creators for sharing such a captivating visual.
Please sign up for our newsletter to be alerted when new content is published and also, don’t forget to leave your thoughts in the comment section.
Note : If you subscribe to our newsletter, the review sent to your email is automatically routed to the promotion mail area, but you can move it to your primary inbox by adding our email to your address book by clicking the ‘Add us to your address book‘ button at the end of our review email.
