The Ugly Truth

The rom-coms keep a-coming with The Ugly Truth, the latest off the production line in the boy meets girl, girl hates boy, boy can you guess what’s gonna happen next genre of entertainment. Katherine Heigl stars as Abby, a successful television producer who, mainly through her own exacting standards, finds herself as a singleton on a succession of not going anywhere dates. In order to boost ratings, cue the arrival of Mike (Gerard Butler) on her television show, a trash talking relationship advice guru who Abby takes a dislike too. However, intrigued by his apparent knowledge of the way the male / female mind works when it comes to relationships, Abby agrees for Mike to help her as she begins to pursue her new good looking neighbour. If you can’t guess how this ends up, you deserve to sit through a Nora Ephron box-set as punishment. In order to spice things up a bit the screenplay is a bit more adult than the usual fluff, but this only half works. On the plus side we have some laugh out loud scenes, but too many one-liners included for shock value stick out like a sore thumb and just aren’t funny. Despite it being a two-hander it’s Heigl who carries the film and that’s good news. She really hasn’t had too many mis-steps in her career so far and she gives a great turn here easily hitting the target ranges of mild drama, romance and comedy. Gerard fares less well and stuck with a part that falls between TV image Mike and caring Mike, doesn’t really convince as either. Overall, this is hilarious in parts, but only mildly engaging during the rest, meaning that the ugly truth in this case is proof that cutting out cheese for crudity is a tricky skill to master.

The OC Film Sting Final Verdict
Worth watching for some funny scenes, mainly involving the excellent Heigl. After that though, there isn’t really too much to get excited about. Rating: 5/10.