The Ugly Truth

Director: Robert Luketic
Cast: Katherine Heigl, Gerard Butler, Eric Winter,
DVD release: 11 December 2009
Rated: MA

Can you handle the 'Truth'?

The only thing stopping this shaky ribald comedy falling in a hole and burying itself is the brittle chemistry between the romantic leads. The professional, constantly-bickering couple has been a Hollywood standby for decades, going back to Spencer Tracey versus Katharine Hepburn who would have blushed to hear the raunchy language in The Ugly Truth.

Abby Richter (Katherine Heigl) is a hard working control freak, frenetic producer of a Sacramento TV news programme. Single and uptight about meeting men, she takes a check list on her first dates to qualify the perfect partner - needless to say second dates are scarce. Mike Chadway (Gerard Butler) joins her news team, much against Abby’s wishes.

Chadway is a bumptious shock-jock expert on women and affairs of the heart, who has a show called ‘The Ugly Truth’, advising his viewers to seek lust rather than love. He’s hired for a regular spot on the morning newscast that Abby produces much to her annoyance, as she dislikes him and his whole attitude.

Frustrated by this turn of events at work, Abby thanks to her kitten, falls (literally) for her hunk of a neighbour, the well-mannered doctor Colin (Eric Winter). I notice that cats are getting important roles lately - check out Drag Me To Hell and Coraline. Tired of feuding, Abby finally makes a deal with the boorish Chadway, he’ll quit the news team if he can’t coach Abby to win the spunky doctor. Abby loses her inhibitions under Mike’s gutsy tutoring as he talks frankly about lusty sex, and she throws off some of her antipathy towards him - even extreme opposites can attract.

Katherine Heigl (27 Dresses) has a bouncy personality, and a smile a mile wide. She loosens up in some bawdy scenes; especially one which may become as much a classic as Meg Ryan’s in When Harry Met Sally. At an important business dinner, much to the dismay of the other diners, Abby - inadvertently wearing vibrating knickers - is driven to wild ecstasy when they’re switched on with a remote control by a child at the next table. It’s ribald and ridiculous, yet the most memorable part of the film. Another comic highlight is the husband (John Michael Higgins) and wife (Cheryl Hines) anchor team on the news desk becoming enthused when Mike offers them explicit on-air sex advice for their flagging love life.

Gerard Butler (RocknRolla) pulls off the chauvinistic, dirty-talking character of Chadway with conviction, and he does work extremely well with his co-star. Their scenes together contain smouldering fireworks; but they’re certainly not your old world lovable romantics, rather a pair of contemporary misfits.

Helmed by Robert Luketic (Legally Blonde) from a script by Nicole Eastman, Karen McCullah Lutz, and Kristine Smith (the latter two having written Legally Blonde and The House Bunny). Here they cheerfully use the smuttiest lines in a comedy for a long time. Much of the humour is in the sexually explicit dialogue with strong language, which may not appeal to everyone. The film languishes at times, coming to life when Butler and Heigl slug it out verbally. Luketic directs with an iron fist, hammering every point home to make sure we get the joke.

Parts of the dialogue, especially in the first reel, aren’t easy to hear - you wish some of the cast would project instead of mumbling their lines. Photography is routine but up to Hollywood standard for a film of this type, though a spectacular aerial scene of hot air balloons gives it a few extra brownie points. The most the important question this movie raises is whether bottled water is purer than tap water. Something we all need to know.

The Ugly Truth has a sprinkling of laugh-out-loud moments, but widely misses the mark as a consummate comedy.

John Bale

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