So recently I went on an overseas trip to see Billie Eilish in her Happier Than Ever Tour. Very exciting stuff, and I would recommend going, if it wasn’t wrapping up. Watch it on YouTube, I guess. But during that trip, my friend and I had a few days and nights to fill with tourist-y stuff.
The usual activities commenced. We went to a local indoor snow playground thing where I proceeded to fall on the only non-slippery surface. The Auckland War Memorial Museum was amazing, and an Ancient Greece exhibit that’s still ongoing was extremely well put together. We went up a really tall tower then went down again. And I learned exactly why everyone hates customs in airports!
Anyway, one night she made me watch the 2009 romantic comedy The Ugly Truth staring Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler, which is bad.
To sum up the plot: a television producer of a bad morning show (not your one, Jennifer Aniston) is forced to work with a poor impersonation of Barney Stinson, who helps her get a boyfriend with a makeover, and they then fall in love. Their climatic fight is in a hot air balloon. You’re also a character, a bored and annoyed viewer.
In a 2007 Vanity Fair interview regarding her film Knocked Up (2007), Heigl complained that the film portrayed women like “shrews, as humourless and uptight”. Her comments, along with a publicised clash with Grey Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes and her subsequent sudden departure from the show, seemingly poisoned what was a very promising career. While I cannot comment on her professionalism, I will say that the same criticism can be made of The Ugly Truth.
This is a film with a poor opinion of women. Heigl’s character learns to settle for a man that doesn’t meet her desires, because she doesn’t know what she wants. Which, to be fair, is a pretty standard trope. It’s the crux of many will they/won’t they stories. Anne Shirley in bloody Anne of Green Gables has the same romantic plotline. We move!
But the love story itself is plodding, tropey or not. Butler is the way he is because many unnamed women broke his heart. Heigl returns to her pre-makeover self, which he turns out to still like. All of this is in the last 20 minutes of the film, and involves the funniest moment, when the doctor boyfriend she’s been seeing is visibly confused as she removed the half wig she’s been wearing. I’m also confused.
We had hair extensions in 2009.
My main emotional response while watching the film was mild bewilderment and simultaneous boredom. Mostly at the script, which is more dated than many films decades its senior. Bargain bin “loveable” misogynists in media are always written like this. Butler’s television personality is only one notch up from Chris Pratt in Jurassic World, and barely scratches at the performance that Charlie Sheen gave on Two and a Half Men. Granted, that was basically not a performance, but the point stands. It’s not shocking to see a man say women should have long hair to be attractive, I’ve spent almost 2/3 of my life hearing that at this point.
But what is shocking is what exactly the film thought was ok within the context of the film. Two moments in particular stand out. In the first, Heigl has an orgasm caused by a child at a dinner table because he finds the remote to the vibrator, she…I’m a gentleman so this sentence is over. It’s awkward and kind of funny, but only because so many of the jokes in this film don’t land.
In the other, the man she hires to replace Butler confesses to raping multiple women in a throwaway line that I think is meant to be the last real laugh in the film.
The Ugly Truth hinges on the romantic chemistry between Heigl and Butler, and they do have it. She’s fantastically beautiful in the film, he’s jowly but smiling, and they both actually seem attracted to each other. Anne Fletcher, director of 27 Dresses, once described the actress as a talent along the lines of Julia Roberts and Meg Ryan, and I think if anything evidences that claim, it’s her ability to sell this dead script.
I’m clearly not the demo here. My friend was delighted at the part we caught on the hotel television, while I was reminded of exactly why I am not part of the romcom twitter cult. There’s great stuff within the genre (read more on kasstastic), but if we’re being honest about quality, the majority of this stuff is mediocre at best. Which is true of every genre, but I didn’t watch those types of movies on this trip. Just this, Orphan: First Kill (LOVED IT) and yet another Princess Di documentary (that new one, it’s decent).
This isn’t an interesting enough film to describe as bad. It isn’t some indescribable flop, nor is it even particularly memorable. It’s more like a bin bag. Useful in certain scenarios, full of garbage, unpleasant if kept around too long, and probably terrible for the environment.
Watch 27 Dresses. It’s better.