“I want to like myself more,” says a woman in a voiceover. On the screen, doctors in masks and plastic gloves surround her unconscious body. “More than I already like myself,” she continues. “Because I absolutely love myself. But I just want to. . . more.” This is the opening scene of “You’ll Be Happier” (2023), a new documentary from director Daniel Lombroso, a member of The New Yorkerof the editorial staff. The film follows a young woman, Jennifer, through the Brazilian butt lift procedure, a complex, hours-long procedure that transfers fat from the stomach, arm or back to the buttock area. Lombroso depicts Jennifer before and during surgery, as well as at different points along the arc of her recovery. Through intimate conversations with her doctor, her sister and her fiancé, Ian, Jennifer describes how she hopes the procedure will change not only her physique but also her relationship with herself.
When a BBL goes well, the healing process, which some patients have said is more painful than childbirth, can take weeks or months. When it doesn’t—if, for example, lipids are injected into the bloodstream and pushed into the heart or lungs—it can lead to death. However, BBLs have “grown as fast as any other cosmetic procedure in recent memory.” According to Times. Each patient brings their own history to the operating table, and Lombroso carefully examines the context for Jennifer’s selection. Her butt lift will cost fifteen thousand dollars—money her parents are encouraging her to put toward a down payment on an apartment—but she’s excited for a makeover, someone to “sculpt my body the way I want it.” She has already undergone plastic surgery, including liposuction and a previous Brazilian butt lift, which she was not happy with. (Her skin is also covered in delicate and feminine tattoos: an octopus sprawls on her side, a butterfly on her hip, roses and vines on her forearm, an anime panda above her thigh.) And she has childish demons to exorcise Growing up, Jennifer says, she felt “horrible because my sisters were very thin and beautiful, and then I’m just . . . there.” She remembers exercising until she passed out, how her parents called her a cow. As Jennifer speaks, an old photo fills the screen—three sisters in fairy wings and crowns, their forms indistinguishable, at least to this viewer. . (“Sometimes when I make films,” Lombroso told me, “I’ll play the subjective narrative of the individual against the archive. I think that can be very interesting.”)
Lombroso’s interest in exploring plastic surgery in a documentary came from his own childhood memories. His mom used to take him around their neighborhood in New Rochelle, New York, and talk about the pressures of being a woman: she never had cosmetic surgery, but she could sense that she was judged differently as she got older. Years later, he noticed a trend of doctors and patients documenting plastic surgery on social media. He was fascinated by the “need to see him” he seemed to express, but it was difficult to know how to represent this urge on film. He wanted to strike a tone with nuance and empathy—to show that he didn’t have all the answers. (He tossed aside the first title of “You’ll Be Happier,” “Skin Deep,” because it implied that Jennifer’s pursuit of cosmetic improvement was superficial.) When Lombroso first learned of BBL, he was “surprised” and of both the risks and cost of the procedure; it was equally influenced by how many women were documenting their procedures on social media, creating personal brands around their body modification journeys. There was a deeper story to be told, he felt, about how reality was constructed—both on Instagram and on the operating table. A taboo against plastic surgery finally seemed to have been lifted – would women be any happier?
The first step in making the film was finding a doctor who wouldn’t turn away the camera in his operating room. Enter Dr. Matthew Schulman, from the Upper East Side, who has streamed BBL operations live on Snapchat. (Schulman also posts images of pre-surgery patients under the Instagram handle @realdrschulman, with captions like: “Another lucky woman to join the Big Booty Club. She wants a lot, so we’re not holding back today.”) Via Schulman, Lombroso met and spoke with two prospective patients. One, a medical resident at Mount Sinai, was thoughtful and charismatic, but she was on the fence about being filmed, and Lombroso didn’t want to be able to push her. Jennifer, however, was captivating, funny, sure of what she wanted, and unafraid to share her story — or be naked on camera. If one could learn from her journey, she told Lombroso, then that was a good thing.
In the film, we see Jennifer, one day outside her surgery, shot at a bare wall. She cleans and files and scrubs and soaks her nails. She hovers in the mirror, caressing her cheeks and pursing her lips – not scowling, centralized, her expression abstract and a little sad. Watching Jennifer undergo fat grafting is shocking. (Lombroso presented the OR material without an additional soundtrack, to better convey the violence of the surgery.) But it doesn’t get much more painful than watching Jennifer struggle to reconcile her BBL with popular feminist scripts. In one scene, she watches a graphic video of her surgery with her sister and her fiancé. “Like, do I love myself or hate myself?” he asks them. “I can’t say what it is.” If Lombroso’s documentary is about the emergence of a new set of unforgiving beauty standards to live up to, it’s also about the distortions women must undergo in their telegraphic self-love while pursuing those standards.
There’s no shortage of morality around plastic surgery today, but You’ll Be Happier feels more invested in carefully observing a woman’s experience. Lombroso hoped to unsettle, rather than reinforce, cultural reverences: the presence of a pregnant character, for example, raises questions about what extreme and dangerous modifications of the body are normalized and sanctioned, and why. Above all, Lombroso wanted to portray Jennifer with sensitivity and depth. She appears, on screen, as alternately delusional and wise, passive and brave. The documentary’s surprisingly high stakes are her happiness, with the viewer not so much wondering whether a BBL will fulfill her as hungering for the world in which it might. It would be nice if some fat relocation gave this already attractive young woman a lasting sense of beauty.
As in his documentary “White Noise”, from 2020, Lombroso is interested in the lives of media creators on and off the screen. “I love the moment after cutting people [the camera],” he told me. A scene in “You’ll Be Happier” shows Dr. Shulman filming an informational video about breast implants for social media. He twists and bites a silicon sphere to demonstrate its wear. When he’s done shot, she stands there awkwardly and plays with the artificial breast. It’s a lighthearted moment, but it fits with another, later scene in which a post-op Jennifer assesses how she feels about her new butt. “It looks a lot better,” she says. The camera zooms in on her face—she’s glowing. “I feel like I have . . . not a new life, but just seeing myself differently, just seeing how much I’ve grown—” She smiles and smiles. “It feels so good!” She’s so bright and open that the viewer feels good too, and desperate for the euphoria to last. The camera stays on Jennifer and she holds the pose, her smile fading. Finally, she nods as if to indicate that the shot is over. ♦
