| Romantic Comedy | MPAA:PG13 |
A recent look through my cabinet has given me an interesting insight into my collection -- I collect movies in pairs. I have two "Sylvester Stallone Live Action Cartoons", Judge Dred and Demolition Man, 2 submarine action flicks, Crimson Tide and The Hunt for Red October, 2 feminist revisionist westerns, Bad Girls and The Quick and the Dead, and the obscure action flicks named for their main charactrers, Jake Speed and Remo Williams. The American President teams nicely with Dave, Stripes with Sgt. Bilko, and Down Periscope with Operation Petticoat. And finally, I have the two Cyrano films, Roxanne (the obvious one) and The Truth About Cats and Dogs.
Abby Barnes (Janeane Garafolo) is a veterinarian who has a radio show called "The Truth About Cats and Dogs". Noelle Slarsky (Uma Thurman) is a model who has appeared in speaker ads and on an oil company calendar. They live down the hall from each other. Brian (Ben Chaplin) is a commercial photographer who has more artistic ambitions. Abby has a cat, and likes to play the violin. Brian has a dog in roller-skates and calls Abby for help. Noelle has a loser boyfriend who likes to yell at her. One night Abby rescues Noel, and they become friends. One day Brian calls Abby to meet her, and she panics. She tells Brian that Noelle is Abby, and that she's a woman named Donna. Brian wonders why Abby is smart and intteligent on the phone, but somewhat less than that in person. Abby and Brian spend an evening on the phone having incredible phone sex (she must have a wonderful cordless phone -- 7 hours on one charge). But of course, Brian thinks he's having phone sex with Noelle, not Abby. Abby falls in love with Brian, but Noelle isn't exactly immune to his charms either. It seems every time she goes to try to help out Abby, she falls for him a little bit more. Noelle comes up with a plan -- get the three of them together, a little booze, and let's see what happens. What happens is that Abby panics and leaves Brian and Noelle together. She thinks they 'do it', and starts being grumpy. When Noelle calls to explain that nothing happend, Abby ignores the phone. Noelle leaves town for a job, and Brian thinks Abby is brushing him off -- this is what he tells 'Donna' when he runs into her at the mall. They spend the afternoon talking, which only makes Abby want him more. Noelle calls daily and leaves long messages to Abby, which finally warms her up. Noelle comes home with a plan -- She tells Brian to make a list of why he loves her, and to bring it to her apartment. When Brian goes to Abby's apartment, he sees 'Donna', who says Abby is in the bathtub. He tells the door why he loves Abby, and when Donna asks about her looks, he says they don't matter. Then he discovers that Donna is Abby, and that Abby is someone else named Noelle. He's not happy about it and leaves them both. We have the obligatory scenes of lonliness, before the happy resolution -- what did you expect.
I really like this film. The humour is intelligent and warm -- the acting is wonderful, especially Ben Chaplin -- he plays the shy guy who's been hurt very well. The only flaw in this film is that anyone could believe that Janeane Garafolo is ugly. Ok, she wasn't exactly a glamour queen in Reality Bites, but every other time I've seen her she's been quite attractive. Sure, Uma Thurman is ethereally beautiful most of the time, but I'd still have chosen Janeane in this film. See this movie, it is definately worth watching.