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Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler are so pleasant in "The Ugly Truth" that it’s a shame to spoil their party. But toil and try as they do, the comedy bogs down in relentless predictability and the puzzling overuse of naughty words.

Once the movies were forbidden to drop the f-word at all, but in this one, it’s only an opening salvo in a potty-mouth bombing run. Heigl plays Abby, producer of the early morning news on a Sacramento station that is operated like no other station in the history of television. Anchored by a bickering married couple, the broadcast is tanking in the ratings, and so her boss forces Abby to bring in Mike Chadway (Gerard Butler), a macho local cable personality whose ideas about the battle of the sexes date back to about Alley Oop.

On his first appearance, he departs from his script, diagnoses the anchor as the victim of his control-freak wife and suggests they’ve probably stopped sleeping together. “This is great!” the station manager raves, despite that the that segment runs so long, it steps on the first five minutes of the network morning slot.

Abby is a raving beauty who of course can’t find a man, maybe because her standards are those of a perfectionist. A handsome young orthopedic surgeon ( Eric Winter ) comes within her sights, after she twists an ankle falling from a tree outside his bedroom window watching him dry off after a shower while she was trying to rescue her cat. That’s the sort of thing, wouldn’t you agree, that happens all too rarely in life?

Mike, the rugged sex-talk guru, tells her she’s making all the wrong moves if she ever wants to catch this guy and starts coaching her. So which guy does she end up with? Guess. The movie leaves not a stone unturned, including the semi-obligatory Beauty Makeover Montage, during which Mike advises her on the requirements of a push-up bra and tells her to acquire longer hair. Uh, huh. And when the doc takes her to a ballgame, Mike broadcasts instructions to her earphone, just as a producer might speak into an anchor’s earpiece.

There’s one scene with real comic possibilities, but it doesn’t pay off. Mike gives her a pair of remote-controlled, battery-powered vibrating panties. (Yes, they actually manufacture such items. Isn’t the Web a useful resource?) Abby, the silly girl, foolishly decides to wear these to a business dinner and takes along the remote control, for reasons it is hard to explain. A kid at a nearby table grabs the remote control. We all know what’s coming, and Heigl makes a real effort, but I’m afraid Meg Ryan ’s restaurant orgasm in "When Harry Met Sally..." remains the gold standard in this rare but never boring category.

The TV news as portrayed in the film makes " Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy " look like a documentary. Every segment can run as long as necessary. Macho Mike ad libs everything. Yes, he’s good for ratings, but if after a few days, he’s really pulling in a 12 in the 5 a.m. hour, in prime time he would outscore the Oscars. And TV cameras do not usually follow newsmen out of the studio and into the street and watch whatever they do — although if it were funnier, we might not mind.

Again, Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler are awfully nice here but the movie does them in. Amazing that this raunchy screenplay was written by three women. At its conclusion, I am forced to report, it provides abundant evidence of my belief that a good movie has rarely featured a hot-air balloon.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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The Ugly Truth (2009)

Katherine Heigl as Abby Richter

Gerard Butler as Mike Chadway

Eric Winter as Colin

Bree Turner as Joy

Nick Searcy as Stuart

Kevin Connolly as Jim

Cheryl Hines as Georgia

Bonnie Somerville as Elizabeth

Directed by

• Robert Luketic

Screenplay by

• Nicole Eastman
• Karen McCullah Lutz
• Kirsten Smith

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The ugly truth — film review.

"The Ugly Truth" hopes to add a raunchier spin to the Doris Day/Rock Hudson comedies, such as "Pillow Talk" and "Lover Come Back," which focused on two professional rivals who hate each other at first sight and only gradually recognize the attraction simmering beneath their hostility.

By Stephen Farber , The Associated Press July 19, 2009 10:14am

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In the past year, movies aimed primarily at women — including “Sex and the City,” “He’s Just Not That Into You” and “The Proposal” — have scored at the boxoffice, demonstrating the potency of an underserved audience as well as the value of counterprogramming. The latest chick flick, “The Ugly Truth,” may not scale the boxoffice heights achieved by some of these films. But with clever appeal to the guys as well as the girls, it seems likely to become a medium-size hit for Columbia. Robert Luketic directed two other successful female-oriented comedies, “Legally Blonde” and “Monster-in-Law,” and while this film is unfortunately closer in quality to the latter than the former, it has just enough laughs to squeak by.

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“Truth” hopes to add a raunchier spin to the Doris Day/Rock Hudson comedies, such as “Pillow Talk” and “Lover Come Back,” which focused on two professional rivals who hate each other at first sight and only gradually recognize the attraction simmering beneath their hostility. Katherine Heigl plays Abby, the producer of a morning TV show in Sacramento that is struggling in the ratings. The station manager decides to add a new face to the mix — Mike (Gerard Butler), a late-night cable TV personality who has won notoriety for his blunt commentaries on why lovesick women don’t understand men’s animal needs. Abby detests everything that the macho Mike represents, but she is forced to work with him when his segment called “The Ugly Truth” becomes a hit with viewers. Along the way, she realizes that her own love life could use some improvement, and maybe Mike’s insights into the male psyche can help her to land the handsome doctor (Eric Winter) who lives next door. It takes a while for her to perceive that her true soulmate is sitting right across the TV console.

The script by Nicole Eastman, Karen McCullah Lutz, and Kirsten Smith (the latter two also wrote “Legally Blonde”) is wildly uneven. The best scenes are those in which Mike coaches Abby on how to inflame the doctor’s interest, and she grudgingly comes to appreciate his savvy intuitions. On the other hand, the TV broadcasts are way too crude; even in a time of relaxed standards, it’s hard to believe that Mike’s sexually explicit rants would ever make it onto a network newscast. The big gross-out scene, in which Abby wrestles with a vibrator, also reeks of desperation.

The movie wastes an excellent supporting cast. John Michael Higgins and Cheryl Hines have promising roles as the married, perpetually squabbling anchors, but they don’t get enough opportunity to demonstrate their comic chops. Kevin Connolly (“Entourage”) has a too-brief scene as one of Abby’s hapless blind dates. Only Bree Turner as Abby’s ever-patient assistant gets a chance to shine.

A romantic comedy depends, of course, on the chemistry between the leads, and here the film is more successful. Both Heigl and Butler find the appeal in very flawed characters. It has been said that every memorable romantic movie requires a scene where the lovers dance together, and Luketic has staged an effervescent dance for the stars. Unfortunately, the director fails to do much with the setting. Sacramento is a pallid presence, indistinguishable from Peoria or Toledo. Even though the picture sputters and stumbles, it arrives at the ending that audiences crave.

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The ugly truth, common sense media reviewers.

Predictable romcom mixes racy content, sexist messages.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Although in the end the main characters learn that

Both male and female characters are very stereotyp

Abby almost falls out of a tree and needs rescuing

Although the movie is more talk than action, there

Frequent use of everything from "f--k," "s--t," "p

Pretty subtle placement of logos for a few product

Some social drinking (wine, mixed drinks), but the

Parents need to know that this R-rated comedy is much crasser than star Katherine Heigl's last romcom, 27 Dresses . It's heavy on sexual references and scenarios (Jell-O wrestling, vibrating underwear, etc.) and light on sweetness. The characters are stereotypes until the end, and most of the messages about…

Positive Messages

Although in the end the main characters learn that it's being yourself that matters, most of the movie revolves around sexist, stereotypical ideas of how a woman should act if she wants to "land" a man -- and how not to act if she doesn't want to scare them all away forever (it basically boils down to playing games and hiding all signs of your true personality...). Other choice bits of advice include never criticizing, laughing at all of a guy's jokes, being sexy but also aloof, etc.

Positive Role Models

Both male and female characters are very stereotypical: The successful businesswoman loses out on romance and is written as a brittle perfectionist who can't find a boyfriend (even though she looks like Katherine Heigl...). Her counterpart is a boorish, sexist, noncommittal guy. Naturally, they both really have hearts of gold and manage to soften as the movie progresses, but the depiction of dating/relationships is still shallow and often cringe-inducing.

Violence & Scariness

Abby almost falls out of a tree and needs rescuing; lots of verbal sparring, with some yelling.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Although the movie is more talk than action, there's a lot of talk, with frequent use of sexual/body part words and euphemisms like "balls," "p---y," "tits," "blow job," "funbags," etc. and frank discussions about sex and attraction. After discussing masturbation with a male co-worker, a woman dons vibrating underwear and has an orgasm during a business dinner. Two other women wrestle in a vat of Jell-O in bikinis. There's also a brief shot of partial nudity (a naked man is shown from the back from the waist down), plus some passionate kissing and one scene with implied sex (including lots of noises).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Frequent use of everything from "f--k," "s--t," "p---y," and "c--k" to "crap," "hell," "goddamn," "oh my God," "bitch," and more.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Pretty subtle placement of logos for a few products (BMW, for instance).

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Some social drinking (wine, mixed drinks), but the characters are all adults, and no one appears to overindulge.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that this R-rated comedy is much crasser than star Katherine Heigl 's last romcom, 27 Dresses . It's heavy on sexual references and scenarios (Jell-O wrestling, vibrating underwear, etc.) and light on sweetness. The characters are stereotypes until the end, and most of the messages about dating and relationships are shallow and, frankly, sexist (i.e. women should play games and hide all traces of their true personality if they want to "land" a man). There's also lots of strong language, from swear words like "f--k" and "s--t" to body-part terms like "balls," "c--k," "p---y," and "tits." To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Community Reviews

• Parents say (19)
• Kids say (17)

Based on 19 parent reviews

Funny. I loved seeing Gerald Butler in a comedy

What's the story.

Sacramento TV producer Abby Richter ( Katherine Heigl ) is a self-admitted control freak with exacting expectations for the man of her dreams ... which is part of the reason she's had trouble finding him. A handsome new neighbor looks like he could be the one, but her show's resident in-house boor, Mike Chadway ( Gerard Butler ), thinks Abby needs to refine her act a bit first and become the woman of all men's dreams: compliant, non-threatening, and dressed for sex. Abby can't stand Mike's caveman ways, but she's eager enough to win her dream guy that she's willing to give his tips a try -- especially since Mike appears to be the ratings lure her bosses have been craving. But, as it turns out, both Abby and Mike find their presumptions turned on their heads.

Is It Any Good?

Heigl and Butler have enough chemistry to make a semi-scorching couple, but the movie's pluses pretty much end there. Truth is, THE UGLY TRUTH is as predictable as a romantic comedy can get. Yes, the two stars can't stand each other when they first meet. And, yes, they're polar opposites. And of course you have to suspect that they'll still wind up in each other's arms by the film's end. For good measure, there's a dance number thrown in so that they can finally touch each other long enough to realize that they like each other.

And there are other problems beyond the story. Tone, for instance. Granted, one of the protagonists is meant to be piggish, but does the rest of the film have to lard it on, too? In order to reach Judd Apatow -ian brilliance, you have to do more than just pile on the crass ( Knocked Up this ain't). Had The Ugly Truth committed to being a simple-but-entertaining escape, it would have fared at least as well, if not better, than Heigl's more teen-friendly 27 Dresses .

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about how the movie portrays dating and romance. Ask your teens whether this is what they think adult relationships are reallylike. Parents, take this opportunity to talk to teens about the danger of changing or hiding your real personality in order to attract someone.

Do the characters in the movie seem realistic, or are they exaggerated " types "? Why do so many romantic comedies have polar opposites falling in love? What's the attraction of that type of storyline? Is it believable?

Do movies make it seem like there's more difficulty communicatingbetween the genders than there really is? Are men and women really allthat different?

Movie Details

• In theaters : July 24, 2009
• On DVD or streaming : November 10, 2009
• Cast : Eric Winter , Gerard Butler , Katherine Heigl
• Director : Robert Luketic
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Columbia Tristar
• Genre : Comedy
• Run time : 101 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : sexual content and language
• Last updated : November 20, 2023

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The Ugly Truth Review

They can now make dane cook movies without dane cook..

2.5 out of 5 Stars, 5/10 Score

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'The Ugly Truth': It Ain't A Pretty Picture

Ella Taylor

Girl Yesterday: Abby Richter (Katherine Heigl) works in a newsroom, but she's no Hildy Johnson. And even Heigl's gift for screwball comedy can't redeem a script determined to strip her character of her dignity. Saeed Adyani/Sony Pictures hide caption

Girl Yesterday: Abby Richter (Katherine Heigl) works in a newsroom, but she's no Hildy Johnson. And even Heigl's gift for screwball comedy can't redeem a script determined to strip her character of her dignity.

The Ugly Truth

• Director: Robert Luketic
• Genre: Romantic Comedy
• Running Time: 101 minutes

Rated R: Sexual content and language With: Katherine Heigl, Gerard Butler, Eric Winter, Bree Turner

Watch Clips

'He's Blowing You Off'

Media no longer available

'Comfort & Efficiency'

'Teach You Flirting'

Bad education: He-man Mike (Gerard Butler) educates Abby on what men really want — and how women should act. The end result: a match made in Hollywood-stereotype heaven. Saeed Adyani/Sony Pictures hide caption

Bad education: He-man Mike (Gerard Butler) educates Abby on what men really want — and how women should act. The end result: a match made in Hollywood-stereotype heaven.

Sit up straight, girls, the he-men are back to instruct you in what women really want.

Parked queasily between He's Just Not That Into You and The Proposal , The Ugly Truth serves up yet another tightly wound career woman, ripe for chopping up, tenderizing and ravishing by an alpha male who knows what's good for her (no, it's not a promotion) better than she does.

It grieves me that The Ugly Truth was written by women — Nicole Eastman, along with Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, who wrote the far superior The House Bunny.

Worse, their inspiration was a self-help book imaginatively titled The Manual and written, if that's the word, by Steve Santagati, a canny entrepreneur who has parlayed a lifetime of thinking with his primary sexual organ into glib cautionary tales for the modern woman who has everything but Mr. Right.

Which pretty much describes Abby Richter (Katherine Heigl), a comely but controlling TV news producer whose career has been as successful as her love-life has been wrecked by her need to stage-manage every date — and, it's implied, by her retro-feminist wish to mate with a sensitive male with whom she shares common interests.

Fresh from stripping for Hilary Swank in the even more wretched P.S. I Love You, lightweight Scottish charmer Gerard Butler hams it up with minor verve as Mike Chadway, the special correspondent who's brought on board Abby's show against her will to boost its flagging ratings with laddish words of wisdom for the lovelorn. (Read: sexually deprived.)

Pretty soon Mike is delivering the red-blooded hetero version of the role normally played in these films by a flotilla of waggish gays, jazzing up Abby's prim wardrobe with lacy black bras and micromanaging her conveniently arid romance with a clean-cut, anemic physician (Eric Winter) who's just not into her — or, wink wink, any other woman.

Picture several slung-together episodes of The Mary Tyler Moore Show , minus the sharp writing and the good cheer, and you've got the ungainly gist of The Ugly Truth. It's a measure of Heigl's gift for screwball that she manages to bring some redeeming rage into the routine humiliation — passing for physical comedy — to which director Robert Luketic ( Legally Blonde ) subjects her. Among the choicer manifestations: Abby finds herself brought to involuntary orgasm at a corporate dinner by a small boy deploying a remote control. Funny!

If this nasty little sex war were pushed all the way, it might at least be parsed as satire. Alert, however, to the fact that they're catering to the I'm-not-a-feminist-but ... generation of women — ladies who want their career achievement and their happy-ever-after tied up together in a shiny pink bow — the screenwriters bestow on Mike a history littered with romantic rejection, thus softening him up for the inevitable clinch with Abby. Said embrace will persuade them both that they're meant for one another because, get this, they both prefer tap water to sparkling.

The day after I saw The Ugly Truth , I happened to screen His Girl Friday for a class of students from the Middle East, France, Mexico and the United States. In their oohing and aahing over the fabulous threads so carelessly worn by Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, their delight in the crisp back-and-forth banter gloriously ad-libbed by the two stars from the immortal screenplay (by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur), I saw and felt all the unabashed glamour, wit and sheer elan that's missing from romantic comedy today.

Lord knows, director Howard Hawks was no feminist. But in giving Russell free rein to play Hildy Johnson as a woman who's at her most fulfilled and attractive to a man when she's excelling at her job, he gave American cinema a sexy feminist prototype for the ages.

That was in 1940, and unless you count Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada — and look what happened to her love life, never mind her lovely assistant's — we've been sliding downhill ever since.

From The 'Monkey See' Blog

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The Ugly Truth Review

05 Aug 2009

Ugly Truth, The

The strange thing about this raunchy rom-com is not that its truths are ugly, but that its lies are. It may come as a shock to Katherine Heigl’s uptight Abby that men prefer boobs to brains, at least at first sight, but it will hardly come as much of a surprise to anyone else with a pulse. What’s far worse is the idea that women are as dumb, controlling, uptight and inconsiderate as Abby.

The set-up is familiar from a thousand rom-coms past. Boy — Gerard Butler’s cocky, charismatic shock-jock Mike — meets girl, sparks fly, arguments rage and love blossoms. At least, it does for Abby and her improbably chiselled neighbour Colin (Eric Winter), a surgeon who appears to be her ideal man and who she lands by following Mike’s advice. Naturally, however, Mike’s more than the Neanderthal he seems, and Abby comes to appreciate his better qualities just as she’s realising how much she has compromised herself to keep cardboard cut-out Colin interested.

The plot, in other words, is no worse than any of its genre. What’s wrong is that the script — written, God help us, by three women — seems to hate its leading lady. That’s not without good reason, given her two-dimensional character and pathological naivety. Abby has unrealistic ideas about romance but sets about finding it with, quite literally, a shopping list. She’s not only so anal that she carries out a background check on a blind date; she’s also sufficiently clueless/bunny boiler-esque to reveal this fact. And to produce

a list of suggested conversation topics. While it’s entirely possible that someone who’s organised at work may be incapablein his or her personal life, it’s not credible for someone whose job involves soothing egos and juggling conflicting personalities.

Doing his best to rescue things from total disaster is Butler, who’s clearly having fun with a character we’d like even without the hamfisted attempt at a sympathetic backstory (something Abby, in contrast, isn’t given). He’s rakish, honest, just a little eccentric and charming enough that you can see the attraction on her side at least. If only this were more of a two-hander.

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• DVD & Streaming

The Ugly Truth

• Comedy , Drama , Romance

Content Caution

In Theaters

• July 24, 2009
• Katherine Heigl as Abby; Gerard Butler as Mike; Eric Winter as Colin; Bree Turner as Joy

Home Release Date

• November 10, 2009
• Robert Luketic

Distributor

• Columbia Pictures

Movie Review

Abby knows what she wants from a guy. All the ingredients for the perfect one are right there on her spreadsheet: He must be a doctor. Must drink red wine. Must read F. Scott Fitzgerald. Must like cats.

This attractive, award-winning television producer can afford to be picky. And frankly, she can’t operate any other way. She runs background checks on potential suitors. She provides them with a list of “talking points” before the salads arrive. If men were cars, she’d want the 8-cylinder, leather-trimmed Jaguar—in British racing green. If they were insurance policies, she’d want the comprehensive package with a low, low deductible. If they were a kitchen towel, she’d want the ShamWow.

Alas, perfect men are rarely found through infomercials.

She knows they’re not to be found at work. She knows her doctor-reader-drinker-cat-lover guy is not Mike—that jerk her station just hired to spout inane, offensive commentary during its low-rated morning show. If Mike were a car, he’d be an El Camino. If Mike were an insurance policy, he’d be loaded with frightening collision clauses. If Mike were a kitchen towel, he’d be that ratty thing the dog uses as a pull toy.

But when Abby suddenly finds Colin, her perfect man, living right next door to her, she realizes her whole seduction-by-spreadsheet approach might not work. In desperation, she turns to Mike for help. Mike immediately goes all My Fair Lady , transforming regular Abby into sultry, sexy, compliant Abby—complete with blond hair extensions, curve-hugging evening wear and instructions to laugh at everything Colin says.

Positive Elements

We see people floss. And that can’t be bad, right?

Somewhere, deep down, I think this movie’s creators wanted to tell moviegoers that there is such a thing as love (despite Mike’s insistence that there isn’t). And they wanted to convince us that it encompasses more than what can be stuffed in a spreadsheet.

They don’t, really, but I think they wanted to.

Mike does serve as a father figure for his 14-year-old nephew and, despite all his faults, takes the role seriously. He takes it so seriously, in fact, that he turns down a fabulous gig in San Francisco so he can stay near the boy.

Spiritual Elements

Mike crosses himself while listening to a handful of phone messages.

Sexual Content

The Ugly Truth isn’t so much a romcom as it is a crass, sexualized comedy that sprinkles a dash of romance in there so it won’t come off as too cynical (which would make it a “cromcom”). Tawdry scenes, situations and wordplay coat this film from open to close.

Example 1) Abby and Mike have a painfully long conversation about masturbation—its merits, how often they do it, etc. Their talk culminates with Mike giving Abby a pair of panties that are designed to “stimulate” the wearer. Through a small chain of unlikely events, Abby winds up wearing said skivvies to a business dinner, but drops the accompanying remote control, which is in turn picked up by a young boy. Clueless as to what the device is for, he starts pushing buttons. The result is an amped-up When Harry Met Sally orgasm scene in a crowded restaurant.

Example 2) When Mike is first hired, he confronts, on air, the morning show’s two anchors, who are married to one another and having intimacy issues. Mike analyzes their bedroom behavior in front of the television audience, filling the conversation with references to erections, organs and acts.

Examples 3-467) We see Colin’s bare backside and Abby’s exposed underwear. Mike wallows in a pool of Jell-O with two bikini-clad women. Later, when Abby surmises Mike slept with them, he says he only slept with the “one who could read.” Abby is shown, in a fantasy sequence, as a naked weather girl, with certain sensitive parts of her anatomy shielded by weather icons (clouds, smiley sun faces, etc.). Mike listens to a series of near-pornographic phone messages. Abby’s friend, Joy, makes a lewd sexual gesture. A visual gag involves manual stimulation. Mike suggests Abby wear clothes that showcase her breasts. Two people make out in an elevator doorway. Two others are heard having sex. (Afterwards they discuss whether she was faking her orgasm.) Characters make scads of crude references to critical body parts and how they’d like to have those body parts manipulated. Someone brags that he’s slept with “137 women—most of them conscious.” Chimpanzees mate. And there are some glancing references to homosexuality and effeminate behavior.

Example 468) Mike’s whole on-camera shtick amounts to a belittling of love and affection. Mike believes folks would be better off if they spent their time chasing after lust, repeating this mantra several times in different ways. He argues that broken hearts take far longer to heal than a momentary bout of sexual frustration.

Violent Content

Abby nearly falls out of a tree when she tries to retrieve her cat. The cat breaks a fishbowl—presumably killing the innocent goldfish inside.

Crude or Profane Language

Just over a half-dozen f-words and a dozen s-words. Obscene references are made to sexual organs. God’s name is misused around 25 times; a few times it’s paired with “d–n.” Jesus’ name is abused twice.

Drug and Alcohol Content

Characters quaff wine, drink beer, guzzle champagne and sip mixed drinks. An anchor drinks straight from a wine bottle while on the set.

Other Negative Elements

Mike tells his audience that men are driven by lust and are “incapable of growth, change or progress.” They don’t want real women, he says, but rather compliant sex dolls—and women should change their dating strategies accordingly.

We learn that Mike was once arrested for urinating on a moving vehicle.

Mike tells Abby that men want, in their partners, a paradox: “The saint and the sinner … the librarian and the stripper.” Maybe the creators of The Ugly Truth wanted a movie that fit that bill too. But despite a neatly bundled conclusion and occasional near-sweet musings, The Ugly Truth thinks the ugliness it’s selling is the truth.

At its narrative heart, it fears that many men are indeed superficial morons, and that women, in order to woo such men, should change parts of themselves to meet their expectations.

[ Spoiler Warning ] Abby eventually finds that turning herself into that saint/sinner-librarian/stripper hybrid doesn’t get the job done. She discovers that it’s actually Mike who loves her for who she really is. But the problem is that it’s Mike who loves her for who she really is.

And Mike’s a cad.

No wonder this movie plays out as little more than one of his misanthropic diatribes. Like the men Mike talks about, it pretends to care. But it’s really just a cynical and shallow creature, willing to misuse the narrative and its likable protagonists in order to reach a series of crass, climactic punch lines.

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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Review: the ugly truth.

At least the charmingly brittle chemistry between leads Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler keeps things moving pleasurably enough along.

Robert Luketic’s The Ugly Truth is proof that when dealing with such movies, oftentimes the only thing separating the complete trash from the sort-of-trash is the actors. The film’s title may be a nod to Leo McCarey’s The Awful Truth , and while Luketic’s synthetic rom-com is, of course, worlds away from McCarey’s comedy-of-remarriage masterpiece, the charmingly brittle chemistry between leads Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler keeps things moving pleasurably enough along.

Heigl stars as Abby Richter, an award-winning producer on a small-town morning show. To combat low ratings, Abby’s boss brings in Mike Chadway, host of the titular public-access program on which he gives women advice on picking up men by manipulating their sex-driven minds and insists that any woman who disagrees with him must be single, lonely, and ugly. Appalled at Mike’s crude sexism, Abby enters into a combative—but, oh boy, sexually charged—work relationship with him that results in him betting that, by following his advice, she can nab the heart of her bland but, like, totally hunky neighbor, which, of course, she does. Then some other stuff happens, all of it leading inevitably to Abby and Mike falling for each other.

There’s not an expected beat the film doesn’t hit, and its jokes, while somewhat wittier than the norm, fall flat just as often as not. (One extended bit, in which Abby accidentally wears vibrating panties to an important work dinner, during which the panties go off, is so awful it nearly sinks the whole enterprise, no matter how hard Heigl tries to carry it off through sheer force of will.) Still, Heigl and Butler prove more than adept at this kind of thing, bantering with a breezy sharpness the material doesn’t really earn. Heigl is an old-Hollywood-style beauty with a remarkably expressive face and a talent for physical comedy, and Butler delivers his nasty lines with a rascal charm that hides the fact that Mike is really kind of a dick.

Which, in its way, is another of the film’s modest strengths. Abby may be that typical sexist rom-com type (the professional woman too concerned with work for a normal love life), but unlike in so many other cases, she doesn’t have to change to find love. At the end, she’s the same high-strung control freak she was at the start, and Mike, despite a half-assed attempt to humanize him by bringing up past failed relationships, is the same sarcastic jerk. The Ugly Truth seems to understand that you don’t fix yourself to find the person you love; you find the person that knows your flaws and, for whatever reason, loves you anyway. That isn’t much, but at least it’s something.

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Matthew Noller is a senior associate in the Sacramento office of King & Spalding and a member of the firm’s Government Matters practice.

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Film Review | 'The Ugly Truth'

Girl Meets Ape, and Complications Ensue

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By Manohla Dargis

• July 23, 2009

That tap-tap-tapping sound you hear is another nail being driven into the coffin of the romantic comedy. Over the years this sturdy if supple genre has survived extraordinary cultural and social changes, most notably the suffragist movement in the early part of the last century and women’s rights toward the latter. Liberated women, along with the pill, quickie divorces, swinging couples, blended families and various wars both abroad and at home might have dinged the genre, but it has endured and adapted, even when the story now hinges on boy meets boy meets boy (as in “Shortbus”) or pops up on the small screen (“Sex and the City”).

When it comes to the old straight-boy-meets-straight-girl configuration with big-studio production values, however, you might as well forget it, at least if you’re a woman. Outside of Judd Apatow, who has carved out a niche and inspired something of a subgenre with movies about funny, smutty but sincere man-boys puzzling their way through adult heterosexual relations, the romantic comedy is nearly as dead as Meg Ryan’s career. In the best of these films, the women aren’t romantic foils, much less equals: they’re either (nice) sluts or (nicer) wives, and essentially as mysterious and unknowable as the dark side of the moon. In the most calculating (“The Hangover”), they are strippers with hearts and racks of gold or emasculating shrews.

Which leads to “The Ugly Truth,” a cynical, clumsy, aptly titled attempt to cross the female-oriented romantic comedy with the male-oriented gross-out comedy that is interesting on several levels, none having to do with cinema. Katherine Heigl plays Abby, a producer for a ratings-challenged Sacramento morning television show, the kind that specializes in empty smiles, cooking tips and weather updates. She’s single and therefore, in the moral economy of modern Hollywood, unhappy. Her life goes into a tailspin when her boss hires a professional ape, Mike (Gerard Butler), who delivers loutish maxims on camera about the sexes that basically all boil down to this: Men have penises, and women should accommodate them any which way they can, preferably in push-up bras and remote-controlled vibrating panties.

The two leads, bathed in an otherworldly golden light that makes their skin look honey-roasted and turns their teeth into beacons, look tasty indeed, almost finger-lickin’ good. Ms. Heigl doesn’t do perky all that persuasively, but she does keep her smile and relative dignity even in scenes in which Abby is forced to play the fool, which is often, as when she’s hanging upside down from a tree in her skivvies. She even survives the scene that finds Abby writhing spasmodically during a dinner with her corporate masters, because, well, she’s wearing those pulsating panties, the boy at the next table has the remote, and there’s nothing funnier (or, really, scarier) than the spectacle of female pleasure. Well, it worked in “When Harry Met Sally.”

The director, Robert Luketic, who did far better with “Legally Blonde,” appears to have instructed his actors to (over)play their roles for the hard of seeing and hard of hearing, resulting in across-the-board loud line readings, mugging faces and flopping (clothed) body parts. Mr. Butler, an appealing screen presence who needs better roles or savvier career counseling, does his grinning best with a charmless, unbelievable character who of course is hiding a wounded heart under his leathery man hide. (The first tip-off: Mike provides babe advice to his young nephew, an ape in training.) The fantasy of the redeemable, even lovable cad is a favorite romantic fantasy, one that the writers Nicole Eastman, Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith peddle shamelessly.

That three women thought up this junk should be no more surprising than the fact that the movie is being released by Columbia Pictures, which is overseen by Amy Pascal, the co-chairwoman of Sony Pictures Entertainment. One of the lessons of “The Ugly Truth” — beyond the obvious one that a desirable, desiring woman can never, ever, be happily single and sexual in modern Hollywood — is that holding to your hard-won ideals is of no consequence, at least when there’s a guy to be hooked. When Mike is brought in, Abby fights him because she sees him for what he is: the lowest common denominator. Eventually, though, she succumbs to his coarse ways, even adopting his crude language, because, well, that’s what the public wants.

Isn’t that right, Ms. Pascal?

“The Ugly Truth” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). The language is consistently crude and includes the apparently now requisite antigay slurs.

THE UGLY TRUTH

Opens on Friday nationwide.

Directed by Robert Luketic; written by Nicole Eastman, Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, based on a story by Ms. Eastman; director of photography, Russell Carpenter; edited by Lisa Zeno Churgin; music by Aaron Zigman; production designer, Missy Stewart; produced by Steven Reuther, Kimberly di Bonaventura, Deborah Jelin Newmyer, Tom Rosenberg and Gary Lucchesi; released by Lakeshore Entertainment and Columbia Pictures. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes.

WITH: Katherine Heigl (Abby), Gerard Butler (Mike), Eric Winter (Colin), John Michael Higgins (Larry), Bree Turner (Joy), Nick Searcy (Stuart), Kevin Connolly (Jim) and Cheryl Hines (Georgia).

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The Ugly Truth

Review by brian eggert july 24, 2009.

Here’s a contemporary version of Cyrano de Bergerac, updated from the 1897 play by Edmond Rostand to include plenty of modernized jabber on sexual politics and finding The One. It’s called The Ugly Truth , and it stars Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler as the romantic leads. He’s a misogynist, and she’s a feminist, so they’re seemingly terrible for each other until, inevitably, they’re the perfect match. Butler, who doesn’t believe in love, helps Heigl allure a man she’s after. In the meantime, he falls for her. Of course, they only realize this in the last scenes, when finally they embrace and live happily ever after.

Now that you know everything that happens in the movie, let’s move on to why you’re seeing this. Perhaps you’re like me, and you’re just a romantic at heart who enjoys romantic comedies, no matter how formulaic they’ve become in recent years. Or perhaps you enjoy the eye candy stars. Either way, the chemistry between the two leads makes the movie endurable.

Butler plays a minor-league talk show host whose specialty is “the ugly truth” about relationships. He maintains that men want sex, whereas women have a laundry list of unrealistic characteristics they’re looking for in a partner. In the process of getting together, people change themselves just to find someone, and then, later on, they realize that they have nothing in common because their relationship is based on an act. So why not just behave naturally and get someone that naturally fits The Real You? It makes sense, right?

Heigl’s independent woman character produces a network news program that begrudgingly picks up Butler’s show for a small in-broadcast segment, earning plentiful ratings in the process. Again, begrudgingly, Heigl must admit Butler knows what men want and, therefore, how lonely women such as she can wrangle Mr. Right, specifically her dreamy doctor neighbor. Butler helps using a microphone, earpiece, and vibrating underwear. Figure that last one out for yourself.

Written by Nicole Eastman, Karen McCullah Lutz, and Kirsten Smith, the incredibly bawdy and foul-mouthed script treats its female lead without much respect for her womanly strengths. Her character outline better fits a high school ugly duckling storyline. Heigl’s character has zero confidence over her romantic self, dances around like an idiot when elated, is annoyingly anal-retentive, and dwells on girly things precisely because they’re girly, not because her character would actually like them. She claims to have self-respect but then falls for a “man-whore” who regularly sexually harasses her and every other female within sniffing distance. She doesn’t stick to her purpose, and we never really know what she wants. Was this intentional, to paint women as finicky and men as straight shooters?

Heigl produced the movie, so it’s unlikely she’ll turn on it a few months down the road as she did with Knocked Up after its release. Then again, she has a notorious track record for that sort of thing. She’s an incredibly snotty celebrity, turning on her own work and voicing dissatisfaction with her performances. It doesn’t make her a very appealing star, particularly after she left Grey’s Anatomy and declined an Emmy nomination because she doesn’t care for what she’s taken part in. Perhaps Heigl has put herself into her character from The Ugly Truth , producing a woman who seemingly knows what she wants but doesn’t really know at all.

That the female protagonist succumbs to the wiles of a playboy and admitted manipulator makes the outcome a sad joke, even while giving us that fuzzy rom-com happy ending. What remains constant, even if the characters aren’t, is that everything you expect to happen does. Infuse this safe structure with plenty of dirty dialogue from Butler, and you have a movie that tries for the raunchy-romantic feel of a Judd Apatow production. Everything about it was obviously handed down from another source, and even while realizing that, you’ll probably find the result very watchable, if forgettable.

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Ugly Truth, The (United States, 2009)

Hollywood, it seems, has lost the knack of how to make a good romantic comedy. The best two such films of 2009, Adventureland and (500) Days of Summer , have come down the indie trail. The major studios are unwilling to fund any production that doesn't adhere to a rom-com formula that is becoming tired more as a result of misuse than overuse. These movies still sell a fantasy but it has become more a case of putting together two attractive individuals and telling the audience they're falling in love than taking the time to develop interesting characters and build the romance. The Ugly Truth is a perfect example of the former approach. The only thing that differentiates it from far too many other uninspired rom-coms is that some of the material is funny and there is an occasional edge to the repartee. Beyond that, however, it's a cookie-cutter movie, and the cookies are pretty stale.

A couple of years ago, the pairing of Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler in a mainstream romantic comedy would have been deemed "daring." Since then, however, King Leonidas and Izzie Stevens have been bulking up their credibility in the genre, with Butler appearing opposite Hilary Swank in P.S. I Love You and Heigl headlining Knocked Up and 27 Dresses . With those titles under their belts, they're as safe choices as Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey. They're both photogenic and, if Butler's American accent slips from time-to-time, who really cares? Their chemistry is hit-and-miss, but I can't help wonder if this is more symptomatic of problems with the direction of Robert Luketic ( Legally Blonde ) and the weaknesses in the screenplay. When they're given a full scene in which to interact, there's something there, but those moments are few and far between. Since this is a romantic comedy and they are the leads, it's a given they will fall in love, so why bother showing it?

Abby Richter (Heigl) is the uptight, anal retentive producer for a Sacremento morning TV show that's on the verge of being canceled due to poor ratings. Desperate for anything that will get viewers interested, the station manager (Nick Searcy) hires Mike Chadway (Butler), the crass, un-PC host of the cable access "advice show," The Ugly Truth . Abby thinks Mike is full of B.S. and makes her opinion clear, but he's an immediate sensation. Meanwhile, she's obsessing about how to capture the attention of her hunky new neighbor, Colin (Eric Winter). Mike proposes a deal: he'll offer his insights into the male psyche and teach her how to catch Colin if she'll agree to work with him. If he fails in helping Abby to hook her "perfect man," he'll quit. She agrees and the courtship begins. Of course, it quickly becomes clear that Abby is really attracted to Mike, and Mike is re-thinking his lust-over-love philosophy as a result of Abby. You don't need to see the movie to know how it ends.

One thing The Ugly Truth has going for it is that, unlike many romantic comedies, this one is actually funny - not consistently, but there are enough laughter-inducing scenes to keep things from becoming too tedious. Much of the humor is of the sex farce variety, with some of it (like a sequence involving vibrating underwear) falling into the Benny Hill school of funny bone tickling. For the most part, The Ugly Truth is PG-13 material (with the only nudity being a male butt), but some profanity and a few descriptive sex terms push it over the line into the realm of the soft R, which makes no sense from a marketing standpoint. (But that's another story.) The Ugly Truth feels like it started as a tame romantic comedy before someone decided to graft a few Sex and the City elements onto it.

The Ugly Truth is as review-proof in its own way as any teen-oriented summer blockbuster. It's a neatly packaged product that comes with all the consumer friendly safety labels. The comedy, as sophomoric as it often is, relieves some of the boredom of the generic love story, which might have been more interesting if it had followed up on the bits of The Taming of the Shrew, Pygmalion , and Cyrano De Bergerac that it toys with. Admittedly, mentioning those three titles makes The Ugly Truth sound more interesting than it is because they're ultimately little more than window dressing. The movie is more like a re-make than something new, but many viewers find comfort in the familiar, and this is for them. For my part, if I want to re-visit this formula, I'll head for the DVD shelf, where better interpretations of the same basic story exist.

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The Ugly Truth

By Peter Travers

Peter Travers

Katherine Heigl once complained that Judd Apatow’s Knocked Up , in which she starred, was way too guy-centric and made the women humorless shrews. Heigl owes Apatow an apology (Click here to watch Peter Travers’ video review of The Ugly Truth ) . The Ugly Truth , Heigl’s new romcom, is the real sexist swill. There’s not a genuine laugh in it, unless you think vibrating underwear is hoot material. As Abby Richter, the producer of a morning TV chatfest in Sacramento, Heigl practically defines humorless shrew. To up ratings for her show, Abby is forced to bring on shock jock Mike Chadway ( 300 star Gerard Butler, minus the sandals and the good jokes). Mike lays on the verbal testosterone, even giving Abby hints on how to get laid, which this alleged comedy believes is all women really need. Got that? I hope not. Toss this ugly-ass crap to the curb, along with the other multiplex garbage, and see a romance that gets it right. I’m talking (500) Days of Summer .

(Click here for more news and reviews from Peter Travers on the Travers Take.)

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WNBA upgrades foul on Caitlin Clark by Chennedy Carter, fines Angel Reese for no postgame interview

Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark, right, looks to pass as Chicago Sky guard Marina Mabrey (4) defends during the second half of a WNBA basketball game Saturday, June 1, 2024, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Doug McSchooler)

Indiana Fever forward NaLyssa Smith (1) and Chicago Sky guard Chennedy Carter (7) reach for the ball during a WNBA basketball game Saturday, June 1, 2024, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Doug McSchooler)

Indiana Fever forward NaLyssa Smith (1) looks to pass while being defended by Chicago Sky forward Angel Reese (5) during a WNBA basketball game Saturday, June 1, 2024, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Doug McSchooler)

Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark (22) makes a move around the defense of Chicago Sky guard Lindsay Allen, left, during a WNBA basketball game Saturday, June 1, 2024, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Doug McSchooler)

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NEW YORK (AP) — The WNBA on Sunday upgraded Chicago Sky guard Chennedy Carter’s foul against Indiana Fever rookie Caitlin Clark to a flagrant-1 violation after reviewing the play.

Carter gave a shoulder shot to Clark that knocked her to the floor before an inbound pass during the third quarter of Saturday’s 71-70 win by the Fever. The officials called it an away-from-the-ball foul and didn’t review the play. It was deemed a common foul at the time.

“I wasn’t expecting it,” Clark said after the game. “It is what it is. It’s a physical game. Go make the free throw and execute on offense, and I feel like that’s kind of what we did.”

Carter didn’t answer questions about Clark or the play after the game on Saturday, but spoke to media on Monday.

“I’m a competitor, and I’m going to compete no matter who you are, and no matter who’s in front of me. So that’s just what it was,” Carter said. “Heat of the moment play. We’re getting at it. We’re getting back and forth. It’s basketball. It’s all hoops. After we finish the game, it’s all love.”

Carter then went on to say she took exception to those criticizing her without watching the “whole game.”

“I’m seeing a lot of things — players, fans not understanding who I am as a player,” Carter said. “You have to understand me as a person, too. And don’t just look at one tape and form an opinion about me. I’m truly a passionate person about the game, and I’m genuine. You can ask all my teammates, they’ve gotten to know me. They know the real Chennedy Carter.

“So I’m just saying, don’t form an opinion off of one little clip. And you didn’t even see the whole game and/or the play that led to that.”

Chicago coach Teresa Weatherspoon said Monday that she talked to Carter about it.

“Physical play, intensity and a competitive spirit are hallmarks of Chicago Sky basketball. Chennedy got caught up in the heat of the moment in an effort to win the game,” Weatherspoon said in a statement. “She and I have discussed what happened and that it was not appropriate, nor is it what we do or who we are. Chennedy understands that there are better ways to handle situations on the court, and she will learn from this, as we all will.”

Also Sunday, the league fined Sky forward Angel Reese $1,000 for failing to make herself available to media after Saturday’s game. And the WNBA fined Chicago $5,000 for failing to ensure that all players comply with league media policies.

The league office may reclassify a flagrant foul or upgrade a foul to a flagrant that isn’t called during the game. In addition, the league may impose a fine or suspend a player for a flagrant foul. The WNBA didn’t do either to Carter.

Players accumulate points for flagrant fouls during the regular season and receive suspensions if they reach a certain number.

“This league is awesome, it’s a physical league,” Indiana coach Christie Sides said before playing the New York Liberty on Sunday night. “That was a non-basketball play that needed to be called in that moment.”

Sides praised Clark in her postgame interview Saturday for keeping her composure through all the physical play she’s faced this season.

“She showed it last night,” the coach said. “Got up and kept playing. All she did was ask the officials to review it. They didn’t want to listen to it. I applaud her for how she handled it last night.”

Clark finished with 11 points, eight rebounds and six assists. Reese had eight points and 13 rebounds.

“I grew up playing basketball with the boys. It’s always been physical and feisty and you have to find a way to hold your own,” Clark said.

AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball