Will Ugly Become the New Pretty?
The movie adaptation of the novel Uglies, by Scott Westerfeld, is about a young girl named Tally Youngblood (Joey King). The story is set in a future where humans have destroyed the earth with an overuse of fossil fuels. But scientists and the government decided that the real problem was human nature, our differences causing us to fight, thus creating wars and destruction. The solution: a cosmetic surgical procedure that “fixes” your flaws and makes you “pretty,” which effectively erases any differences between people. The government believed that people who were better looking caused others to have resentment towards them and caused conflict. In this culture, everyone who is pretty is happy and constantly partying in the euphoric “new pretty town.” On the other hand, people who have not yet had surgery (anyone under 16) were sent to live in a different part of town and labeled “Uglies.” In this society, surgery is a way of controlling people.
Tally is excited to turn 16 and finally get her surgery. But when her best friend Peris (Outer Banks’s Chase Stokes) becomes pretty, he doesn’t seem like himself anymore. When she sneaks into New Pretty Town to see him, he is distant, and he tells her they’ll be friends when she’s pretty. Tally narrowly avoids being caught by government Wardens, and as she is escaping, she meets Shey (Brianne Tju) and her perspective on prettys and why they are created changes. There is a rumor of a rebel organization called the Smoke where you don’t have to be pretty to be accepted, where you can choose who you become.
At the beginning of the movie, I felt the acting and the script seemed unnatural. Though as the film progressed, the actors seemed more at ease in their characters. Joey King, the actor who portrays Tally, seemed to especially come alive in the role. By the time Shey leaves for the Smoke, King was immersed in her character, and I was intrigued. There is a choice that Tally has to make, and it might be clichè, but what she decides will change everything.
The budget for this movie is unknown, but the amount of CGI and special effects that were used indicates that it was high. The changed faces of the Prettys make them almost unrecognizable, the effects used looking almost exactly like a TikTok filter. The “pretty” effect definitely looked very fake, but the harshness of it is a reminder of what we see in the present in social media.
In the beginning of the movie, Tally says, “ I don’t want to be free, I want to be pretty. I’m so sick of feeling less than.” Even in this future world where everything is “perfect,” this is a sentence that can be heard now. The whole movie has a quite relatable message, that you don’t have to be “pretty” or “perfect” to be beautiful and good enough. Tally also has huge character growth throughout the movie. She starts out insecure and naive, terrified that she might be punished and not get her surgery. And by the end, despite the mistakes that she has made along the way, she is confident about who she is. And she can say, “I am Tally Youngblood. Make me pretty,” but now she is saying it for a much different reason. The movie makes us think about the urge to conform to what everybody says is the “best” or the “prettiest.” Does it fundamentally alter our brains? Uglies is rated PG-13 and is streaming on Netflix.
