The Ugly Truth

Directed by Robert Luketic

(R)

*

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Another case of opposites attracting

The Ugly Truth is “all ugly, no truth,” said Richard Corliss in Time. In this battle-of-the-sexes comedy, Katherine Heigl plays an uptight TV producer desperate to get a man. So she seeks advice from her show’s boorish comment­ator (Gerard Butler), who has a Cro-Magnon take on dating.­ Written by three women and directed by a man, the film could have been a 21st-­century, tell-it-like-it-is take on romance, but instead it winds up an “unplanned essay in misogyny.” When not being bullied by her supposed love interest, Heigl delivers “witless” banter, said Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune. Aside from the raunchy sex jokes, the film “feels about 150 years out of date.” It’s as if the filmmakers were determined to set the women’s movement back ­several decades, said Leah Rozen in People. The Ugly Truth settles for stereotypes instead of capturing how men and women truly interact today. Indeed, the only truth revealed is that “making a successful romantic comedy is even harder” than finding true love.