Uglies

Rated PG-13 • Netflix

What if possessing flawless physical beauty was the law of the land? In the new Netflix film Uglies, everyone in a future society must undergo cosmetic surgery at age 16 to “transform” from an Ugly into a Pretty. The rationale is that attractive people won’t envy each other, so fighting will cease. Expect the film to confront society’s obsession with outward appearances, but don’t expect it to name sin as the true source of discontent and discord or look to Jesus who had “no beauty that we should desire Him.”

Uglies is based on Scott Westerfeld’s young-adult book series by the same name. Given the subject matter, it’s ironic (but not surprising) that the film’s cast consists almost entirely of beautiful 20-somethings. In that way, Uglies undermines its message. Diatribes about reusable energy distract from the message, as do some pointless millennial-gratifying action scenes, for example, Back to the Future–style hoverboarding over a roller coaster. Even so, the ambivalent main character’s struggle to break free from her culture’s narrow but tyrannical construct of beauty makes the film worth a viewing and a conversation.

The narrator opens the film explaining how previous generations nearly destroyed the planet in wars fought over “squandered natural resources.” But “human nature [is] the world’s biggest problem,” as it divides people into classes and clans. District Gov. Nyah Cable (Laverne Cox), the film’s antagonist, promises that surgical transformation will make “you perfect inside and out … beautiful and free from hatred and discrimination based on the way you look.”

And carefree. The Pretties dance and drink day and night in a sprawling city that glows in Las Vegas neons. The Uglies split their time between school and bleak dormitory rooms. Tally (Joey King), who bears the unflattering nickname Squint for her supposedly imperfect eyes, excitedly awaits her 16th birthday. But when her best friend ghosts her after his surgery, Tally wonders if becoming a Pretty might erase her personality, too.

Tally’s inquisitiveness lands her in trouble with Cable, who blackmails Tally into infiltrating a subversive and reportedly violent group of Uglies who live among forest-covered ruins beyond the city’s walls. Experiencing a different set of values, Tally must decide who she is and what kind of world she wants to live in.

King’s locked-in performance as an uncertain heroine capable of both bravery and betrayal establishes her alongside Jennifer Lawrence and Millie Bobby Brown as a bankable fantasy/sci-fi lead. But the film’s writers seem conflicted, too—over their point. So, which is it? Does “dependence on fossil fuel” lead to the “collapse of society,” as Tally relates in a school report, or does envy? Is prejudice humanity’s greatest problem, or oil? The film doesn’t convincingly synthesize the two. Also, a little cinéma verité would have boosted the film’s credibility: Why not cast actors who more fittingly look their Ugly part? Maybe we’ll see them in the sequel that the ending sets the stage for.