At this point in the movie-going season, the mid-summer crowds are
staggering around the multiplexes like exhausted fair visitors —
sweaty, sunburned, delirious, and desperate for nourishment but
confronted everywhere they turn by greasy, cynical gunk as appetizing
as a deep-fried candy bar on a stick. The Ugly Truth is the
latest sugary product prepared for your consumption by the major
studios’ Romantic Comedy Mini-Donut purveyors, but it’s not as
repellent as its ad campaign indicates. It’s not exactly good for you,
but it’s not exactly bad, either. It’s funnier than The
Hangover, sexier than The Proposal, and easier to follow
than Transformers 2.
The film is a series of refreshingly blunt and vulgar maneuvers in
the never-ending Battle of the Sexes. Katherine Heigl plays a starchy
network news producer who initially locks horns with a lewd
public-access TV troll (Gerard Butler) brought in to revive the
station’s low ratings. Their antagonism changes into an uneasy
partnership as the troll uses his lunkhead “wisdom” about the male
libido to help his boss land a prince of a boyfriend. But after a
series of trials, the troll discovers that he covets his
protégée for himself.
Heigl has been a reliable box-office bet for the past two years, and
she’s primed for a profitable, predictable career as a second-rate
comedienne. She’s already working inoffensive, nearly imperceptible
changes on her soon-to-be-inescapable role as a type-A supergirl who’d
be way better if she could only loosen up and settle down. (Unless
something unimaginable happens, the only thing interesting or
unpredictable about her film career will be her role in Zyzzyx
Rd, which famously grossed $20 during its 2006 theatrical run.)
Butler, ever the sport, plays the troll with some gusto, and he’s an
unusual rom-com screen presence with a slippery accent and a build
that’s lumpier and more humanely muscular than one might expect.
As this “romance” develops, Heigl’s defenses crack admirably and
sexily. She’s especially good in a silly fracas (involving
remote-control vibrating panties) that manages to invoke both Nora
Ephron and Nicholson Baker. The supporting cast — Bree Turner as
Heigl’s assistant, John Michael Higgins and Cheryl Hines (who gets the
best line) as a feuding morning-show couple, and NewsRadio‘s
Vicki Lewis in a too-short cameo as a clothing salesman — are
good for a couple of surprises.
Still, what a galaxy of ciphers this film presents! No character has
an inner life; their actions are motivated by gadgetry, instinct, and
blind chance. The superficiality of most onscreen interactions are
almost narcotic, and the shared trivia that inflames the two leads’
passions is random even by rom-com standards. But the movie is at least
honest about the arbitrariness of the final coupling. When Heigl asks
Butler why he likes her, he admits that he has no clue. They seem to
know that their relationship looks as meaningful and long-lasting as a
Saturday-night frat-row hookup sustained only by mutual deception and
sadistic sexual gamesmanship. Ain’t love grand?
