New on video for November 10/09 | “The Ugly Truth”

2009 | U.S. | 96 minutes
Director: Robert Luketic
Writers: Nicole Eastman, Karen McCullah Lutz, Kirsten Smith
Cast: Katherine Heigl, Gerard Butler, Eric Winter
Distributor: Columbia Pictures
Cdn video distributor: Sony Pictures

The Wife loves reading Cosmo, or just about anything that will help her unlock the secrets to the male mind. Naturally — as I’m sure many men can relate — I shake my head and say, “Sweetie, really, we’re not that complicated.”

The Ugly Truth dares to promise similar insights but, befitting of the fact it’s written by three women (Nicole Eastman, Karen McCullah Lutz, Kirsten Smith), it quickly abandons the so-called “ugly truth,” and falls into a pit of complex courtship methods — much like those labyrinth love teachings in Cosmo, which only make plausible sense to the women reading them. Ladies, please, just spend the money buying us beer. It’ll work wonders.

Katherine Heigl plays Abby; a stunningly beautiful blonde who can’t find a man. Yeah right. The morning news show she’s producing is not going well either. To help shake things up, her boss hires a crass TV love doctor, with the suitably macho name of Mike Chadway (Gerard Butler). Mike seemingly confirms how simple our brains are. He even spells it out in an early scene: “Men. Are. Simple.”

So far, so good.

Abby hates him already, thus setting in motion that painfully-overused romantic comedy plot device of girl meets boy, girl hates boy, and so on. But, first, she aims to sabotage his career. He can’t chance that so he makes a deal with her; he’ll help her score with the hunky surgeon (Eric Winter) she has her eye on, and she’ll support his show. Deal.

What follows is a varied assortment of scenes involving body make-overs, and lessons in seduction, so complex our girl needs to be read the guidebook via a wireless earpiece when she goes on dates. What happened to “men are simple?” Do you need any further proof women wrote this?

Besides giving advice like a Cosmo “secrets” article,  Mike is also periodically shown hanging out his young nephew. The poor kid is given no other purpose in the story but to illustrate what a loving and sensitive uncle Mike is. Can the script be any more obvious with its direction?

And so it goes, as the film wanders through a series of comic situations built around embarrassing moments (mostly sexual) until our heroes finally acknowledge their mutual attraction, retreat, and so on and so on.

Considering there are so many romantic comedies like this — and this one definitely scored nicely at the box office — surely confirms most people don’t care we’ve been here before. Many times. There’s no doubt Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler are lovely to watch, its heart is in the right place, and everyone talks about sex and the sexes a lot — all wrapped in the cozy blanket of a formula romantic comedy. Good enough?

But if you want more compelling insight into the male (and female) mind, I recommend this clip from Mark Gungor. It nails more “ugly truth” in 5 minutes than this movie does in 90.

• Theatrical release date: July 24, 2009
• Video release date: November 10, 2009
• Production Budget: $38 million
• Worldwide Box Office: $196,304,363

FUN ALTERNATIVE: There is no love interest in Dreamcatcher. This is not a romance. Nor is it very funny. So why am I highlighting this sci-fi supernatural thriller? Because it’s the only film I can recall that actually visualizes what the inside of a man’s brain might be like. Similar to what Mark Gungor describes in the above-noted clip, it’s looks like a vast library, filled with countless boxes — each containing its own unique memories.

It’s a very clever visual and, someday, I hope there’s a filmmaker who makes a whole movie around the concept (the female equivalent, if Gungor is to be believed, would likely resemble the innards of a pinball machine). Unfortunately  for Dreamcatcher, it never exploits the potential of this visual — much like many of the other intriguing ideas the story introduces, and then abandons.