Typical fat girl revenge story: Girl gets thin, calls up pretty college friends who always had more fun than she did, drags them into the woods and tears them apart. Perhaps not literally tears apart, but “Pretty Ugly People” relies on the weird premise of formerly obese Lucy essentially checking off that list, and yet the story somehow works.

Tate Taylor makes his writing, directing and producing feature debut with this film, and though some aspects of the tale are predictable — the evolution of personalities after college, the value of inner beauty over the outer shell — the characters still remain interesting.

Usually comic Missi Pyle (“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”) tones down the role of Lucy, a character who surrounds the story but never consumes it. Melissa McCarthy (“Gilmore Girls”) acts as peppy Becky, former freelover, now kitsch-loving teacher married to an anal principal. Phill Lewis (“The Suite Life of Zack and Cody”) is uptight politician Raye, embarrassed of his non-PC wife. And rounding out the bunch are two men, one who is always mistaken as being gay and the other who buries his sexuality to uncomfortable limits.

Lucy urgently gathers her old pals through the deception that her life is on the line rather than the truth that her life is just beginning following gastric bypass surgery. The relationships were already strained from time and growth, and the great outdoors becomes a claustrophobic space as Lucy forces them to become part of a multi-day trek.

“Pretty Ugly People” makes a pleasant endeavor to change up the usual routine of the reunion film, and the cast inhabit their characters without becoming too nasty or cloying.

As Taylor learns to simplify his storytelling, his next effort should be worthy of a look.