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Renee Bennett struggles with low self-esteem and manages the website for cosmetics firm Lily LeClaire. She decides not to apply for a receptionist position at the corporate headquarters, her dream job, after reading the job description’s emphasis on being beautiful. She wishes at a fountain to be beautiful and the next day she falls, hitting her head.

Waking up with the belief that her appearance has magically changed, Renee approaches the world with newfound confidence. When a man named Ethan speaks to her innocuously, she insists that they exchange numbers. She applies for the receptionist position and is hired by CEO Avery LeClaire.

Renee asks Ethan out and enters a “bikini body” contest. She wins over the crowd but loses the competition, and tells Ethan that she doesn’t need external validation to know she’s beautiful. Ethan praises her self-knowledge, and she appreciates his openness over not yet knowing himself. They meet again for a picnic, after which they spend the night together.

Renee earns her coworkers’ respect with her insight into the company’s new diffusion line. Avery confides in her her insecurity over her high-pitched voice, feeling that she is not taken seriously. Avery invites Renee and Ethan to a dinner meeting with her brother Grant and their grandmother, company founder Lily LeClaire.

Renee builds rapport with Lily, and Avery invites her to an important business meeting in Boston to give a key presentation. Renee becomes superficial in her treatment of people. She is judgmental of LeClaire visitors who are not fashionable or glamorous, and ditches her friends Vivian and Jane to attend an exclusive party with her coworkers.

In Boston, Renee nearly gives in to Grant’s romantic overtures, avoiding a kiss when she receives a message from Ethan. She locks herself in the bathroom to avoid Grant, and while questioning her sense of self and her recent behavior, she suffers a new head injury in a fall in the shower. When Renee awakens, she perceives her real physical appearance.

Devastated, Renee leaves the hotel alone for New York, missing the presentation. She isolates herself in her apartment, avoiding Ethan and Avery’s calls, binge drinking, and eating junk food. Drunk and miserable, she turns up at her friends’ apartment and apologizes for her behavior. They reject her apology.

Assuming that Ethan will no longer be attracted to her, Renee breaks up with him over the phone, moments after speaking to him in person believing he does not recognize her. He is brokenhearted by Renee’s rejection, blaming himself for having come on too strong. She tries but fails to recreate her original injury that she believes made her beautiful. Renee encounters her beautiful acquaintance, Mallory, who is devastated over being dumped. Mallory says that she suffers from low self-esteem and feels people assume her beauty means she is unintelligent.

When Renee hears that Mallory is auditioning to model for the LeClaire diffusion line, she realizes that LeClaire is out of touch with everyday women. She crashes the product launch and, in the course of a presentation where she displays her own before-and-after photos, she realizes that she was never transformed. Renee gives an impassioned speech about women accepting themselves as they are, presenting a collage of diverse real women, including Vivian and Jane, who appreciate the gesture.

Grant and Lily praise Avery for having the acumen to hire Renee; together, they are key to the success of the new line of products. Renee goes to Ethan’s apartment and apologizes, explaining that her insecurities were related to her feelings about herself and not to her feelings for him. Ethan tells her that she has always been the most beautiful woman in the world in his eyes, and they reconcile, confident and happy.