WHEN the trailer for Amy Schumer’s latest comedy, I Feel Pretty, landed earlier this year it was received with vehement negativity.

Long before anyone had actually seen the film, critics accused it of body shaming and relying on the ludicrous premise that Schumer is unattractive. There’s no smoke without fire but I Feel Pretty is, in reality, far too innocuous to deserve such spite.

The film is the directorial debut of Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein – the writers of 2016’s How to Be Single – and sees Schumer play Renee Barrett, a young woman plagued with insecurities.

Renee works for New York cosmetics company Lily LeClaire but has been hidden away in a Chinatown basement office. From a distance, she idolises the Barbie-doll employees in the head office, where even the interns resemble models.

One night, inspired by watching the film Big, Renee runs out into the rain and hollers to a fountain: ‘I wish I was beautiful!’ The next day, at her local gym, Renee falls off an exercise bike, suffers a nasty crack on the head, and surfaces with the false belief that her appearance has radically altered. It hasn’t.

Contrary to the naysayers, I Feel Pretty is not a film intent on wielding ‘fat jokes’ and displaying stick-thin models as humanity’s physical ideal. The conceit here is that when Renee believes she is beautiful, she gains confidence and excels. To the rest of the world, all that has changed is her level of self-confidence. Thus, it is not her appearance that has held Renee back.

I Feel Pretty is, ultimately, thoroughly misguided in every respect. The winning, fist pump of a closing act might uncover a heart that is firmly planted in the right place but it’s one that beats erratically through the main. As a comedy, the film isn’t nearly funny enough. As a champion of real women, the film is contrived.

For more meaningful laughs this week, your best bet is Tully, from Juno director Jason Reitman. Starring Charlize Theron, Tully tells the story of a mother of three who forms a unique relationship with the night nurse gifted to her by her brother.

Written by Diablo Cody, the film has been described as a modern-age Mary Poppins. Theron plays a mother who struggles with pregnancy and is left on the verge of a breakdown in raising her young children. Tully (Mackenzie Davies), meanwhile, is more hipster than practically perfect.

- Toby Symonds