What if it was possible to make yourself become absolutely perfect? What if all it took to achieve that was one little surgery? What would you do?
This is what Netflix’s teen dystopian movie Uglies (based on the book by Scott Westerfeld) sets out to discuss. As with every book-to-movie adaptation, there are bound to be some creative changes, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But in this case, the producers failed to properly translate some of the most vital elements of the book onto the screen, and the end result is a shockingly basic movie with shallow messages, a boring protagonist, and an inaccurate portrayal of the dystopian world as a whole.
Uglies is about a society where all people are given a dramatic cosmetic surgery at 16. This surgery turns them into a breathtakingly beautiful “Pretty.” The protagonist is Tally Youngblood (Joey King), who has waited all her life to become a Pretty. One day, her friend, Shay (Brianne Tju), runs away to avoid getting the surgery, and the authorities want Tally to bring her back. Tally’s dangerous journey to reach her friend leads to a shocking truth about the world she lives in.
There are a lot of things wrong with this movie. First of all, the Pretties in the movie aren’t… well, pretty. I know how that sounds, but hear me out. In the book, Pretties are supposed to be so impossibly beautiful that they make today’s celebrities appear hideous by comparison. The book’s messages are so impactful because it shows readers a heavily caricatured portrait of the modern beauty industry.
In the movie, though, the Pretties look exactly as they did when they were Uglies. A character named Peris (Chase Stokes) goes through the Pretty surgery, and afterward, he ends up looking the exact same. The only noticeable changes are his eye color and hairstyle. This subtle change from Ugly to Pretty makes the story’s commentary on unattainable beauty have little to no impact. Without a good caricature to startle people, it’s hard to get a message to really stick.
Another thing the movie gets wrong is the protagonist, Tally. Something that makes Tally’s character so interesting in the book is her support of the status quo. Throughout the story, she berates Shay for her stance against the surgery, silently scolds the rebels’ way of living, and constantly acts under the selfish desire to become Pretty. Though Tally could be frustrating at times, her conformist view is what made the book so captivating for me.
In the movie, however, it’s a different case. She is presented as a character whose faith in the surgery is not firmly rooted. In the one very brief argument Tally and Shay have, Tally’s argument for Pretty society sounds extremely halfhearted, as if she herself is unsure of her own beliefs. The beliefs that are supposed to shape Tally’s entire character aren’t present in the movie, making Tally a largely uninteresting protagonist; a typical dystopian heroine who is quick to change her opinions about the status quo.
The movie also portrays the dystopian world all wrong. What the book did well is make the dystopia seem more utopian. In the book, it is explained that the high-tech city that Tally lives in uses efficient energy and sources things responsibly, and that the Pretty operation was created to prevent inequality and discrimination. The book successfully blurs the line between utopia and dystopia, allowing the story to be much more nuanced.
The movie, on the other hand, makes it painfully clear that the world of Uglies is dystopian. The Pretty surgery is intentionally made to look horrifying with metal drills, blades, and claws. The city is known to get all of its power from a destructive and invasive species. The overwhelming portrayal of rebellion throughout the movie urges the viewer to view the society badly as well. There are brief mentions of the good intentions behind the surgery, but they are never elaborated on. The movie displays a stale, surface-level message along the lines of, “Don’t trust the status quo! It’s evil!”
Unless you like terrible book-to-movie translations, I recommend you don’t watch Uglies — just read the book instead.
