Uglies (2024) is a movie adaptation of the first installment of the dystopian novel by the same name. The film garnered a lot of attention while it was in production for its casting, as most books with a large fan base get when an adaptation is announced. The issue is most of the fan base read the books in middle school and have since moved on.
The world of Uglies was almost destroyed by war and famine until the world’s best scientists came up with a solution to human conflict: the pretty surgery. When everyone is pretty through the surgery, there’s no fighting. “Because everyone is accepted. No one is left behind.” Tally isn’t your average dystopian protagonist. She’s all for the surgery and finds a new friend in Shay: a rebellious girl who doesn’t seem to be all about the surgery. They share the same birthday and are scheduled for the procedure on the same day until Shay runs away looking for a community outside of the only world they’ve known, leaving cryptic instructions for Tally to find her. Tally is tasked with going out and finding her or never getting the surgery.
I feel like this movie wouldn’t have seemed so bad if it had come out with the rest of the dystopian book adaptations of the 2010s. The entire film feels like a prologue flashback. There are many unnecessary scenes where characters essentially repeat information that they already said. For example, the movie opening, one of the most important parts of a movie, is wasted time. There’s nothing in the voiceover CGI light show opening you don’t learn during the movie.
A huge element of the novel is how beautifully unsettling the Pretties are, and this is one aspect I felt translated somewhat well on screen. This is something people who have only seen the movie don’t get. They are supposed to be unsettling and somewhat inhuman.
The themes of the film are very topical today with the rise of plastic surgery and the increasing pressure to change things about your face. At the surface level, this is all the film seems to be about. In actuality, the purpose of this film isn’t to shame people for plastic surgery, it’s to hammer home the importance of critical thinking. Did the film complete its mission? I’d say somewhat. If it wasn’t so wrapped up in trying to make a quick buck off of people’s nostalgia for an era of film that’s passed, it could’ve been a fantastic social commentary while also being fun.