What Do The Critics Say
"The Ugly Truth stands or falls on the farce skills of Heigl. I like her, and I liked her in this movie. She throws herself with abandon into the centerpiece scene of "The Ugly Truth": an accidental public encounter with a sex toy that one-ups Ryan's fauxgasm in "When Harry Met Sally"; and because it's a scene about abandon, she comes off as enormously likable and game. Robert Luketic allows it to build over five or six minutes of screen time. He lets us anticipate the humiliations we know Heigl is headed for, and then, when they arrive, the joke gradually accelerates until it explodes."
Chris Hewitt ST PAUL PIONEER EXPRESS
"I can’t say that I didn’t laugh at the Katherine Heigl moments, but I laughed out loud: and a lot, to the tune of Gerard Butler. Like so many comedies I’ve seen over the years, “The Ugly Truth” also has a strong supporting cast, at times overshadowing the leads. While no one upstages Butler, Heigl is, and it is at the hands of folks like Cheryl Hines and John Michael Higgins. The ugly truth is that all the ugly truths in this film are indeed ugly truths, not just outrageous material for the sake of comedy."
Kevin Carr 7M MOVIES
"What appeared to be another cliché romantic comedy, The Ugly Truth adds the raunchy angle and delivers some very decent laughs with your expected ending."
Kevin McCarthy BDK REVIEWS
"A crass, simple-minded and highly contrived R-rated comedy that's nonetheless outrageously funny and irresistibly entertaining. Director Robert Luketic, who previously directed Monster-in-Law and Legally Blonde, wisely keeps the pace moving along briskly and includes a lively soundtrack."
Avi Offer NYC MOVIE GURU
"I found myself laughing throughout the film, from Chadway’s comical lessons to co-anchor spouses to Abby’s vibrating undergarments. Gerard Butler offered a new comedic side that paralleled well to Katherine Heigl’s uptight performance. With so many vulgar expressions the film should be targeted to the adults out there who can relate and enjoy this devilish treat. Daring and dirty: making it so delicious."
Jolene Mendez ENTERTAINMENT SPECTRUM
"Heigl is a blonde bombshell who combines come-hither looks with splendid comic timing. Butler has a rough exterior, but his character gets under your skin in a good way. The easy rapport and chemistry between the two leads creates a sexually motivated tug-of-war. Men and women in the audience will be taking sides and have a genuine rooting interest in the outcome. A fantastic soundtrack from composer Aaron Zigman adds icing to this delicious celluloid cake. This must-see date movie provides valuable insights into the mysteries of what makes men and women tick."
Keith Cohen ENTERTAINMENT SPECTRUM
"The Ugly Truth doesn't waste much time on subtlety, mining its biggest laughs — and there are several: from rude, crude verbal combat and a pair of vibrating panties. The Ugly Truth has all the tidiness and bounce of Luketic's usual output ("Legally Blonde" & "Win a Date With Tad Hamilton")."
Amy Biancolli HOUSTON CHRONICLE
""The Ugly Truth" excels, poking indiscreetly into the genre's every corner. Under the direction of Robert Luketic, The Ugly Truth is pleasingly glossy, refreshingly snarky and startlingly sexy. One senses a gleefully dark sensibility lurking in the minds of the film's three female screenwriters."
Ruth McCann WASHINGTON POST
"Somewhere, amid an ocean of self-help dating tomes like the ubiquitous "He's Just Not That Into You" and "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus," the battle of the sexes rages on. Heigl deserves the crown for "The Ugly Truth," a smart sex comedy that adds up to more than the sum of its clichés."
Kara Nesvig MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE
"Crude: you bet, but of course, love never follows rules and we spend the entire film enjoying the joust between Heigl's obsessive, controlling Abby and Gerard Butler's pig-headed, arrogant Mike. There are a glut of scenes that are played for laughs, like Cheryl Hines and John Michael Higgins' husband and wife co-anchors who rekindle their sex life in front of their viewers. Heigl and Butler milk their characters for all they are worth and while the result may not be Hepburn and Tracey, the film is superficial Hollywood dressed up as a date movie."
Louise Keller URBAN CINEFILE
The Inside Story
The battle of the sexes heats up in "The Ugly Truth", a smart, sexy comedy about men, women and the giant abyss that stands between the ways we each think about, fantasize about and try to seduce the other. "Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There’s too much fraternizing with the enemy." Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. For centuries, great thinkers have pondered the vast gap that exists between the male way of seeing the world and the female way of seeing the world and wondered if we can ever really connect. For Mike Chadway, former cable TV phenom and the new correspondent on Sacramento morning television, the answer is really quite simple: don’t be an idiot. Of course men and women can connect: but mostly in between the sheets, and only if women will finally begin to understand that men are primal, carnal, simplistic beings who crave constant arousal. Abby Richter, a woman who takes the complete opposite position is Mike's producer on Sacramento morning television. In Abby’s world, true love is the bottom line and the trick is point of views? That’s the question raised with playful provocation and tantalizing results in the comedy "The Ugly Truth", which teams director Robert Luketic ("21", "Monster-In-Law" & "Legally Blonde") with the tit for tat comic pairing of Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler. "I think we’re all starting to realize that men and women are wired differently and it’s liberating to be able to play with that in a movie that’s honest and frank, but also outrageously irreverent, about what makes us different and what brings us together," says Luketic. "The Ugly Truth" began with three women screenwriters: Nicole Eastman and the high-energy team of Karen McCullah Lutz ("Legally Blonde") & Kirsten Smith ("She's the Man"). Eastman, who makes her screenwriting debut, says she was inspired by the idea of writing about two people who think they despise each other, but as their battle wages, are horrified to find they might also be magnetically drawn to one another. "It’s really about the two most unlikely people in the world to fall in love and, what happens when they accidentally do," Eastman explained. "Abby and Mike have a lot of resistance to each other. She’s the opposite of the brainless bimbos he says men want, and he’s nowhere near the Prince Charming she says she’s always wanted. Yet you end up rooting for them to come together because you can see underneath they both have similar vulnerabilities. What I love is that they’re definitely not your cookie-cutter comedy characters. And what makes this story different from typical romantic comedies is that the obstacles that stand between them aren’t external but internal. There are a lot of layers to what’s really going on." All of those layers were inspired by the actions and interactions of real men and women Eastman had observed. "I based Abby on someone I know who is great at her job but terrible at dating," Eastman said. "Mike was a completely fictional character I wanted to be as obnoxious and rude as possible, so I can’t believe how much men say they relate to him!" Eastman’s initial script immediately drew Lakeshore Entertainment’s interest. As 2005 Oscar ® winner Tom Rosenberg ("Million Dollar Baby") explained: "We’d been looking for a comedy with romantic elements ever since "Run Away Bride" and we felt this was it." The concept was hilarious and topical and we felt audiences would greatly enjoy the battle between these two characters. The story has a lot of fun with how men perceive women and how women are aghast by it, and vice versa, which makes for a terrific date picture," says producer Gary Lucchesi ("The Exorcism of Emily Rose").
"We felt it could be a modern update of the classic comedy where you have two charismatic stars butting up against each other in very funny ways." The Lakeshore team then brought in Lutz and Smith ("L'homme c'est elle"), the writing duo who scored a hit franchise with "Legally Blonde", to add their frank and flirtatious comic touch to the screenplay. "Lakeshore sent it to us and we thought right away it was a really funny premise and wanted to work on it," Lutz says. "They talked to us about creating a kind of snappy Hepburn and Tracy repartee, but in an edgy and raunchy way, and keeping Mike and Abby equally matched all the way to the end. That really attracted us," Smith recalls. They did so by drawing on their own experiences on the battleground between what men and women want. The two women especially had fun exploring the 'ugly' side of the male psyche in crafting Mike’s macho, libidinous banter. "We both know a lot of guys, so we had that advantage," Lutz says with a laugh. "And Kirsten is single and I’m married so we’ve got two different perspectives on men. Both of us agreed that we wanted Mike to be as strong, brash and funny as possible: but at the same time, we wanted to make him that kind of guy who, even if he offends you, you still like hanging out with." Smith adds: "One of the things we needed to do with Mike is show how he also has a whole different side to him than just this tough guy and ladies’ man, which you see in his relationship with his nephew. As for his show, we had fun taking it to an extreme. I definitely disagree with all his crazy, insane beliefs and yet somehow I’m completely tickled by Mike." The duo also drew on their own personal knowledge of ambitious and bright but uptight and controlling career women to create Abby. "We both totally connected with Abby because we both like to be in control," Lutz, the married member of the duo confesses. Smith, who is single notes she "especially related to the idea of Abby as a woman who’s really got it together at her job but is a complete disaster in her personal life. I think it’s a pretty common phenomenon in the modern world." The completed script thrilled the producers at Lakeshore and quickly drew the interest of Robert Luketic. "My very first feature was Legally Blonde, so it was wonderful to have this chance to get back with the same screenwriters and have that kind of fun again," the 2002 Young Hollywood Award winning director says. "Then I heard that Lakeshore was talking to Katherine Heigl." He immediately said, "If she’s in, I’m in." To play Abby, the filmmakers were looking for a leading lady with the smoldering silliness of a classic screwball comedienne, a kind of 21st Century Carole Lombard ("Made for Each Other") or Lucille Ball ("The Fuller Brush Girl"), able to deliver a crackling one-liner while simultaneously possessing a vulnerable sensuality and a slapstick sensibility. Such actresses aren’t a dime a dozen, so the list of contenders was short and quickly narrowed down to one name. Lucchesi ("Untraceable" & "Virtuosity") recalls one of the writers asking: "Have you thought about Katherine Heigl?" His reaction? "The moment I heard that, that was it. It was a great idea, we knew she was right and we pursued her vigorously." Emmy Award winner Heigl ("Grey’s Anatomy"), who at the age of fourteen made her big-screen debut in Craig Bolotin's "That Night" (1992), has recently come to the fore in a number of screen comedies, most notably taking the lead role as the pregnant woman in question in Judd Apatow’s critically acclaimed "Knocked Up". The entire creative team thought she had just the right qualities to make Abby as believable as she is blundering.
"It just worked to read the script with Katherine’s voice in our heads. Once we found out she had been cast, there were no adjustments that needed to be made at all," says McCulluh Lutz. "As soon as we started collaborating with her, Katherine really embraced the idea of wanting to make Abby even more controlling. She absolutely nailed the comedy of her obsessions and neuroses," Smith notes. For Heigl, taking up arms in the battle of the sexes was an irresistible proposition. "What I loved about the script is that it provides insight into what men are really thinking and why women get it wrong, and the other way around. We’ve all seen the standard romantic comedies, and I think there’s always a place for them because I’m a big romantic comedy fan." Heigl ("27 Dresses") doesn’t hold back when describing Abby, admitting: "She is a pretty uptight chick. She’s super organized, very on top of things, totally in control in every aspect of her life and frankly, it makes her a little scary. As a date she’s a nightmare because she’s overwhelming, she’s bossy and she talks too much. But to be honest, it was really super fun to play that, probably the most fun I’ve had!" The greatest joy of all for Heigl was verbally jousting with Gerard Butler. "I have a real love of that sort of old Hollywood repartee that you don’t really see much anymore. Gerry and I found that fast-paced, sparring dialogue so much fun. Even in your regular life, if you’re out with another couple and they’ve got that great witty thing going, it’s the most entertaining thing to be a part of. And it kind of just happened seamlessly between us." In the midst of all this, Heigl had one major comedy mission: cracking the director up. "For me, the best feeling was to be in the middle of a take and to see Robert trying very hard to giggle without making too much noise. All I ever wanted to do was to make him laugh." Luketic says she did that, and much more. "Katherine is a breath of fresh air. She’s a wonderful actress and she’ll have a place in my heart forever." Squaring off with Heigl on the other side of the sexual skirmish line is Mike Chadway, played by Gerard Butler, who won over audiences as a steely warrior in the action hit "300", did a romantic turn with Hilary Swank in "P.S. I Love You" and played an adventurer in the family film "Nim’s Island". Butler was attracted right away by the screenplay. "The dynamic between men and women in this story is a little more outrageous than we’re used to seeing and what really hits home is how truthful it is. It’s very honest, in an outlandish way, about what goes on in relationships between men and women. That’s what got me excited about it." "Gerry’s always been a larger than life character," says Lucchesi. "And he’s also very funny. But what really convinced us is that when he and Katherine Heigl met, the chemistry between them was obvious." On the set, Butler had a blast working with so many skilled comedians and watching Robert Luketic keep the riotous chaos under control. "Robert keeps a very breezy and fun atmosphere on the set, but he’s also very sharp." Luketic is equally strong in his praise for Butler. "He really captures that undeniable connection between the bad boy and the guy that women can’t help but be attracted to." Surrounding Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler in The Ugly Truth is an accomplished supporting cast made up of well-known comedy veterans who ratchet up the comic tension in the battle of the sexes. Chief among these are Cheryl Hines and John Michael Higgins. "I've never seen two people make a crowd laugh so much, not on a film set anyway," Butler admits. Newcomer Eric Winter was cast as Abby’s ideal love prospect: the hunky, refined Colin.
The Verdict
"I'd like a dollar for every time someone has prefixed a statement with, 'the truth is'. By now I'd probably be, with good investment advice, as rich as Bill Gates. When-ever I hear those three words I immediately cringe. Why? Because alarm bells start ringing. The first thing that springs into my mind is, "hullo, here comes the bullshit!" Why so many people use this phrase, beats me. It reminds me of another phrase that suffers from verbal repition syndrome and is, in my case, constantly perplexing: 'trust me'. It pains me then, that I must now stoop to using the very same phrases that have pissed me off over the years. 'Trust me', when it comes to "The Ugly Truth", I have to admit, 'the truth is'(for those cinemagoers who aren't easily offended or aren't morally challenged), this rom/com is a treat in more ways than one tahnks to the films two stars: Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler. Heigl (hi gull) pitches Abby as the perfect foil for Butler's highly opinionated, misogynistic, Mike Chadway. More laughs come thanks to Cheryl Hines and John Michael Higgins who play "A.M. Sacramento" co-anchors Georgia and Larry. The co-anchors first encounter with the outspoken Chadway leads to a 'live to air' revitalizing of their affection for each other. Those who have seen "When Harry Met Sally" will remember Meg Ryan's famous 'orgasm' scene. Well, hang on to your hats folks, because "The Ugly Truth" has it's own 'orgasm' scene with Heigl as the recipient. Once again I must warn readers that if you are morally challenged think twice before seeing "The Ugly Truth". The perfect date flick. Don't miss it! 4 STARS."
Synopsis
 Abby is an ambitious morning talk show producer on "A.M. Sacramento" who prides herself on being able to find an instant solution to any problem: any problem that is except her own unhappily single status. When it comes to dating, the always-in-control Abby has a flawless track record of failure. When her show suffers a ratings slump, Abby is forced to team with the newly recruited special correspondent Mike, a man who couldn’t push more of her buttons. His "The Ugly Truth" segment promises to spill the beans on what makes men really tick. But his outrageously racy, gleefully chauvinistic, 'shock jock' style rubs Abby in all the wrong ways. Then Abby meets Colin, her neighbor, and he’s a single doctor! He’s everything Mike Chadway isn’t: suave, polite, not remotely into jello wrestling, and this time, Abby doesn’t want to blow it. She hates to admit it, but she needs Mike’s insight into the male mind to make the right moves. He'll coach her and she'll put his provocative seduction theories to the test!
Who Plays Who?
Katherine Heigl
Gerard Butler
Bree Turner
Eric Winter
Nick Searcy
Jesse D Goins
Cheryl Hines
John Michael Higgins
Noah Matthews
Bonnie Somerville
John Sloman
Yvette Nicole Brown
Nate Corddry
Allen Maldonado
Steve Little
Dan Callahan
Tess Parker
Arielle Vandenberg
Kevin Connolly
Rocco DiSpirito
Valente Rodriguez
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Abby Richter
Mike Chadway
Joy
Colin
Stuart
Cliff
Georgia
Larry
Jonah
Elizabeth
Bob
Dori
Josh
Duane
Steve
Rick
Bambi
Candi
Jim
Guest Chef
Javier
The Production Team
Director
Screenplay
Story
Producers

Original Music
Director of photography
Film Editor
Casting
Production Designer
Set Decoration
Costume Designer
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Robert Luketic
Nicole Eastman/Karen McCullah Lutz/Kirsten Smith
Nicole Eastman
Kimberly di Bonaventura/Gary Lucchesi/Deborah Jelin Newmyer
Steven Reuther/Tom Rosenberg/Kirsten Smith
Aaron Zigman
Russell Carpenter
Lisa Zeno Churgin
Deborah Aquila/Jennifer L Smith/Mary Tricia Wood
Design by Missy Stewart
by Kathy Lucas
Betsy Heimann
Run Time 101 minutes
Rated MA15+ [AUST]
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