Juju's Ugly Truth about "The Ugly Truth"

May The Dog present one of our guest writers, Juju. Young, intelligent and promising, just like The Angry Pothound likes. Enjoy!

THE UGLY TRUTH

Genre: Romantic Comedy

Premise: Abby Richter (Katherine Heigl), a clueless romantic and anal producer of a network morning TV show in Sacramento, CA faces pressure from her superiors as the show continues its steady decline in the ratings. In a last-ditch attempt to save the show from being sacked, the station manager seeks out Mike Chadway (Gerard Butler), host of late-night cable show “The Ugly Truth.” Mike’s crass rants about why most women can never get what they want from men create a stir, catching the eyes and ears of Sacramento locals. By giving him a segment on Abby’s show, the network hopes to salvage what’s left of the show’s market share. Naturally, Abby and Mike’s disparate personalities are bound to clash. Abby is jarred by Mike’s boorish opinion and finds him undeserving of a place on her show, but is forced to work with him. In so doing, she discovers that there may be some merit to his theory and eventually, failing her own efforts, accepts his offer to help her woo the surgeon neighbour she’s been eyeing. In the process (goes without saying), the two opposites eventually attract. Produced by Heigl herself, Robert Luketic, (Legally Blond and Monster-In-Law) takes credit directing for this one. The script is by the trio of Karen McCullah Lutz, Nicole Eastman and Kirsten Smith, who also wrote Legally Blonde.

Unlike most of the rom-coms of this year (think The Proposal), The Ugly Truth, with some zippy writing and artful direction is a premise with potential to be an impressively satisfying chick-flick experience.

However, the actual movie teems with offensively stale and unsurprisingly predictable, cookie cutter battle-of-the-sexes babble, made worse by jaded hit-and-miss humour. Some scenes (like the troubled married anchor couple getting into an on-air makeout session on Mike’s prompting) are utterly impossible to believe. Others, like the vibrating panty at company dinner, should have been omitted entirely. The makeover and Latin dance scenes make for some colourful screenplay at best. Most enjoyable are the scenes in which Mike manages to coach an unwilling Abby on how to attract the surgeon, after watching her flail around miserably on her own, almost driving him away.

With zero real laughs or romance, the film is neither as risqué nor as likable as it hoped to be. A wanna-be edgy and funny variation of the rom-com template, it’s just on the brink of distasteful (if you have a clue, that is) and desperate. That’s the real ugly truth.