I kid you not: at my screening of The Ugly Truth, the film broke right at the film’s climax. Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler were acting out the pivotal scene that you knew was coming, and the film broke. I could have waited for the film to be fixed just so I could see the last minute in between the unimaginative climax and the credits, but at that point, I had already correctly predicted every other single thing that was going to happen. Why wait when I’m sure I know? I can wait for the DVD (or basic cable so I don’t spend money).
The two opposites-who-may-or-may-not-attract meet at work. Abby (Heigl) is a high-strung, type-A TV morning news executive producer whose entire life is her job and her cat. She’s very specific about what kind of man she wants and keeps a list of criteria handy. Mike (Gerard Butler) is a boorish, sexist commentator hired by the station to boost ratings with a segment called “The Ugly Truth.” Eventually, Mike becomes Abby’s life coach to help her land her handsome neighbor, teaching Abby to think more like him and less like herself.
If you think you know everything about Abby and Mike… you’re right, you do. These two characters are stereotypes, written with no imagination and acted with no originality by Heigl and Butler. Their every move – almost their every line – is predictable. Through glimpses of his home life, there’s maybe a hint that Mike isn’t the lout he pretends to be – but that part of his life is way underdeveloped so that when he does show a different side, it’s completely unbelievable. It’s not a shock though, well, because you know it’s in the lazy script that he has to show a different side. (Guys: if you loved him in 300, you’ll be heartbroken here. Yeah, he’s playing an alpha male, but it’s a chick flick, so he’s not playing a cool one. Just what they think we think is cool).
If you’ll indulge this media-employed critic a moment to nitpick, the TV side of things is completely wrong. In The Ugly Truth, directors are able to suddenly cut to remote cameras that are able to go anywhere they want them to, Mike has props and people brought into the studio that no one sees ahead of time, and the crew has the ability to go to commercial at a moment’s notice. Abby phones Mike on a TV call-in show and she’s never screened, she gets right through, and she’s able to talk right to the TV without turning it down (there would be an echo). Is it vitally important a movie accurately depict every aspect of the workplaces they take place in? No, but it does show a degree of laziness that’s symptomatic of the whole movie.
I’ll admit that The Ugly Truth isn’t entirely ugly. There are some sequences worth some laughs, and even when you see the joke coming, you laugh at how it’s executed (there’s a scene that is The Ugly Truth’s attempt at a “hair gel” scene from There’s Something About Mary. It’s not great, but it’s not bad).
The great John Michael Higgins always steals scenes in movies from the Christopher Guest mockumentaries to the little-seen Fired Up. Here, he’s very good as the stereotypical clueless anchor, and while not as funny, he’s more true-to-life than Anchorman’s Ron Burgundy. Unfortunately, Cheryl Hines’ part as his wife and co-anchor isn’t written nearly as well. I could see the Curb Your Enthusiasm star thinking, “Larry David wouldn’t write this.”
Yeah, not even close, Cheryl.
