"The Full Monty" left moviegoers with something its 2023 TV continuation doesn't, which is the gift of optimism. The 1997 film wasn't entirely giggles and adorable pelvic thrusts to Donna Summer's "Hot Stuff" while waiting in an unemployment line. Its writer Simon Beaufoy (FX's "Trust") jogged its six down-and-out Britons through an obstacle course of insecurity, body shaming, a shared sense of worthlessness and feared obsolescence.
But he also ended this glimpse at their run of bad luck with high-stepping mirth and one of the most joyous scenes in modern movies. The striptease promised in the movie's title, set to Tom Jones' "You Can Leave Your Hat On" ends with a freeze frame of the core cast's bare backsides, fading to black with a pervasive sense that somehow things would work out.
