Aside from Heigl, surprisingly gentle fun

Rating: 7/10 (8 August 2009)

The crux of the movie is Heigl's discovery that her ideals of relationships, her self image as a romantic partner, and her understanding of her job are all unrealistic and flawed. She learns better, begins to care about valuable goals and to be connected and responsive to those around her.
The cross stories, that Butler's cynicism, though less dysfunctional in his own life, is also overly defining, the way entertainment ratings depend on fickle audience perceptions - and the way modern feminism and gender role redefinitions might threaten romantic and intimate relationships - are important.
Overall, the story tells fairly trite but true lessons in fairly useful ways.
The R rating is apparently by design, to attract a prurient audience. I didn't find the partial nudity, or the language to be that far from common usage, though some of the topics were certainly more adult that we want to think of for preteens.
But I think Heigl was miscast. There were a very few scenes where she is appealing. In the scenes where she is portraying a cold and emotionally unavailable woman lamenting the lack of "quality" intimate partners, where she laments loss of control of her life and work - she diverts attention from the story to her over-the-top withdrawn portrayal. From stories of her caustic behavior on set during production, I have to wonder if that is the best that the director could get from her - or left her looking that bad as a subtle retaliation for unprofessional conduct on the set. Presumably the editing was unable - or unwilling - to overcome the snub or weak performance, whichever was the case. I found most of Heigl's performance off-putting and artificial.
Other than Heigl, this was a fun movie. I enjoyed much of the interplay between the main characters and watching the supporting characters delight in how the main characters interacted.
The Ugly Truth turns out to not be that ugly. It treats the characters and the theme about how honesty and commitment are required for a real connection with respect and loving care. There are no real villains, the conflict is all about the fall of cynical preconceptions. And I enjoyed that aspect of the movie as much as anything.