La vérité toute crue

What's wrong with duck for dinner? Duck is delicious.

Is that true about tap and bottled water being basically the same? I'll take that one on trust.

And why can't we see Mike's congratulatory cake? I bet that box was empty. Boo.

But back to the review...

Abby (Heigl) is nothing if not prepared. She's capable. She's unflappable, at least until Butler's character, Mike, shows up. I don't know about you but, background check and casual heightism aside, I rather like the idea of a date who comes to dinner with a prepared list of conversational topics. Who likes awkward silences?

Abby's TV morning show is dropping in the ratings, so her boss decides to freshen it up by hiring a spicy TV personality, Mike Chadway, to present the Ugly Truth. He's going to be controversial on love and relationships, the battle of the sexes, telling it how it is, in his mind anyway, not how folks pretend it ought to be. Abby is horrified, but the results are in and the numbers don't lie. Abby's lovelife being a trainwreck, in a short time Mike is doling out advice to her too.

Mike's TV routine, first seen on some kind of cable channel (is that right, cable?) is crude to say the least. Very lowbrow. He remorselessly objectifies women, gleefully in fact. And how does he do that so convincingly? I'll tell you. It's because this movie, The Ugly Truth, was screenplayed by three women. Yes. True. Look it up. Roger Ebert was astonished that something so vulgar could come from writers on the distaff side, but I'm not. No-one is better at objectifying women than women themselves. And yup, you guessed it - that's the ugly truth.

But what about this movie as another entry in the rom-com genre?

Mike's right. "The truth is never pretty." Does this movie stick to its truth till the end? It ought to be a bitter end, given the obnoxious date-doctor's philosophy, but, well, things tend to end happy kissy in Romcom Land. And this is a standard issue Hollywood genre picture, with just the kind of locations, lighting, lensing, soft music, bouncy spirit, to make it only barely distinguishable from a host of others. What sets it apart? Heigl and Butler both have good energy, likeability, and Mike's crass, schoolboyish sense of humour, the kind the ladies both disapprove of and giggle/swoon over. Contradiction? In a man's world yes. In a woman's mind, call it multitasking.

In under half an hour Mike has had chicks wrestling in pudding on morning television. Abby then has a dream where she's demoted to being a nude weathergirl, dropping tacky innuendoes. Neither set piece is remotely convincing. Nor for that matter is the cat up the tree scene, also inside the first half hour. Once Mike/Butler starts dishing on his fellow men, then, well, you really know this stuff was written by women. It's testament to Butler's charm and Heigl's that they make this crass piffle funny and entertaining. And I disagree with Ebert about the restaurant underwear scene. I think Heigl's impromptu O-performance is more impressive than Meg Ryan's (from I'll Have What She's Having) for being fake real as opposed to fake fake. Curious to admit, but The Ugly Truth rises in status within the genre on account of its unusual, explicit vulgarity. It's not insipid, which makes a nice change. It's borderline gross, but not gross-out. It's rude-funny without being disgustingly filthy. It may be completely unbelievable that someone so icky would get a morning tv timeslot alongside news anchors, and likewise end up advising a beautiful woman on how to date moment-by-moment, but the payoffs outweigh the absurd setups.

Recommended, I'm ashamed to say.

Gerard Butler is one of my favorite actors and in The Ugly Truth he's very inappropriate. Robert Luketic directed a fun rom-com that is very bold, charming, and energetic; lovable yet easy to hate. Katherine Heigl is gorgeous and delightful she's easy to enjoy; I need to see more of her! A little obnoxious at times but I guess it's a guilty pleasure.

If you're looking for a breezy, predictable romcom that pokes fun at gender stereotypes, "The Ugly Truth" will fill the slot. It's basically a watered-down rehash of the classic "When Harry Met Sally" gender war romcom (right down to the orgasm at a restaurant scene) with nothing really new. Unfortunately the angle that would have given it a fresh spin ended up on the cutting room floor. I'll get to that in a sec. First let's summarize the story.

Abby (Katherine Heigl) is an uptight, prudish tv producer who is forced to work with a loud-mouthed, misogynistic talk show host named Mike (Gerard Butler). Each presents an extreme stereotype of the sexes: Abby is a control freak who expects her man to be straight out of the Hallmark Channel while Mike treats women like he's ordering at the McDonald's drive thru. The plot revolves around a bet: Mike tells Abby that if she follows his neanderthal advice, she can snare her perfect dream man.

So there's an interesting sort of role reversal, where the prudish female is taking lessons from the neanderthal bro in order to achieve her ideal Hallmark romance. That itself was a great start, but this clever spirit of the film got lost when they cut a few critical scenes (I guess because those scenes focused on character development and didn't have enough zingers).

The scenes that were cut showed exactly how hopelessly neurotic Abby is and why she keeps scaring men off. And they focused on the important, yet mostly lost, subplot of how fake Abby must become in order to snare her man. 4 or 5 scenes were cut, and rather than understanding the degree of Abby's "Pygmalion" transformation, we the audience are rushed through the process. Also cut are some scenes that show Mike to be more sensitive/human, giving his character depth which is otherwise lacking. The result of these cuts is, instead of this film showing more of a complex gender-role-reversal switcheroo, it simply falls back on the black & white stereotypes of men being neanderthals and women being prudes. Nothing exceptionally clever, but still entertaining enough.

So in the end, yes, I can understand why the watered down message could offend some. What we get is mostly the male perspective of Mike, reducing Abby's role to being his clueless sidekick. And the rest is predictable.

The angle of them on a tv set with a producer/talent relationship is interesting, but it's nothing really new if you've done your romcom homework. On that account I would sooner recommend "Groundhog Day" which has the identical setup--Bill Murray playing the narcissistic tv talent with Andie McDowell playing his more sensible-minded producer--except that Groundhog Day rightfully focuses on the narcissist coming down to earth, not the other way around which we see here.

A final note worth mentioning. I've heard it said that any movie that ends with a hot air balloon is insulting to the viewer's intelligence. There is indeed a hot air balloon in this one. So be prepared...

I now believe that 2009 should be dubbed the year of the Romcom.

I was dragged to see the proposal by my girlfriend and thought it was hilarious. When she wanted to go and see The Ugly Truth I found myself putting up less of a fight this time. And I'm glad.

This film is HILARIOUS. I have to say I enjoyed almost every second from start to finish. It truly is designed for both men and women with fantastic views on romance, sex, attraction etc from both sides.

Acting is great, story is great and the chemistry between Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler works very well on screen.

To sum this film up I have to say watch it. Make your own mind up. But I bet you won't be disappointed and I bet you can't stop yourself from one agreeing with some of the points made and two laughing out loud.

So as I was forced to watch this movie with my sister and her friend, the original stereotypical thoughts towards all love movies seem to be bursting throughout my head- corny: guy meets girl, girl hates guy at first, girl meets another guy then realizes that the first guy was the love of his life, girl goes back to guy and the movie ends with a touching make-out scene. Well, of course this was the case. HOWEVER, I wouldn't exactly call this movie a chick-flick. It seem to be the "battle of the sexes type," and it did not disappoint. I can easily say that I had some great laughs in this movie; surprisingly, and I am not even a comedy/chick flick guy. The whole moral of the movie is something both guys and women can you relate to, and some scenes are just hilarious for all types of audiences. The whole plot of the story was actually pretty solid for this style movie. In fact, the approach of this movie is so unique that I believe it belongs in its own category. Gerard Butler gives an excellent performance, both funny and charming. The humor had tremendous variety that kept audience laughing hysterically at some points. Overall, I really do recommend this movie for the male audience (Especially couples) and guarantee that they will not be disappointed after seeing this flick.