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don't usually watch a lot of Romantic Comedies, mostly on the basis that RomComs
are so pedantic and uninspiring as to be insulting to one's intelligence. As
such, my intermittent doses of RomComs usually come about when the star of said
RomCom is someone I find appealing that their presence transcends the genre in
which they are wallowing in. Jennifer Love Hewitt, the star of the UK production
"The Truth About Love", is such a person. So sue me, but I find the little lady from Dallas, Texas to
be terribly appealing. So much so, in fact, that I willingly suspend disbelief
and allow myself to be convinced that she's a married British woman, accent and
all.
"The Truth About Love" opens with Archie
(Dougray Scott, "Mission Impossible II") confessing via
voiceover his unrequited love for Alice (Hewitt), who is married to his
college chum and law partner Sam (Jimi Mistry, "The
Guru"). As Archie is our hero and leading man, we can't be
expected to hate the bloke for having a crush on his mate's wife,
especially since Sam is not only cheating on poor Alice, but when the
opportunity presents itself, is willing to cheat on his mistress, too!
What a guy, this Sam. As played by Mistry, Sam is an all-around cad too
concern with his own pleasures to worry about anyone else's.
The story gets interesting when Alice receives an
anonymous love letter from Archie (he had written it, then sent it,
during one drunken night). This leads to Alice's promiscuous sister
Felicity (the very funny Kate Miles, who steals the show whenever she's
onscreen) suggesting that Sam is not entirely faithful. Alice resolves
to prove sis wrong by sending Sam an anonymous love letter, betting that
Sam will tell her about it. Oh how wrong she was. Sam instead hides the
letter and continues to contact his mysterious admirer (his own wife),
eventually getting involved in phone sex before graduating to late-night
rendezvous in poor Archie's empty apartment in the city.
Since "Truth" is a Romantic Comedy,
there's no use wondering if Alice and Archie will eventually get
together by film's end. The answer is Yes, they eventually do. Did you
think they wouldn't? But it's how the two get there that's fun. Although
it's a little difficult to buy Jennifer Love Hewitt as a married woman
(she's still much too young, and at times her age betrays her), but
nevertheless, Hewitt decked out in lingerie straight out of Victoria's
Secret is more than enough to make one suspense disbelief for however
long she requires it. And while the lovely Ms. Hewitt still hasn't
graduated to the school of Sharon Stone ala "Basic Instincts",
she is nevertheless very sexy in the role.
Despite the fact that his character opens the film
with voiceover narration, it's interesting to note that Dougray Scott is
missing for much of the film's middle, only showing up intermittently to
remind us that he's actually the leading man. This is probably due to
the filmmakers having fallen in love with Jimi Mistry's cad, so much so
that Mistry ends up with more screentime, not to mention more depth,
than Scott. As a result, the film's final third, when Alice and Archie
finally come together, is less convincing. Of course it probably doesn't
help that Scott has about a decade or two on Hewitt, and Hewitt doesn't
play "mature" all that well.
The other character that should have had more
screentime is Kate Miles' sexually active sister. Miles does wonders for
the film whenever she's onscreen, but instead Miles probably has less
screentime than Sam's Russian mistress (Branka Katic). I'm not entirely
sure what was the point of showing the mistress so often, since we never
really learn anything about her except 1) she's Russian and 2) she's the
jealous type. And oh yeah, she's a painter, if that's important to you.
Not that Katic is bad in the role, it's just that her character is
background, and should have been left there.
"The
Truth About Love" does indeed follow the conventions of the RomCom
formula quite dutifully, although it does throw in a couple of wrinkles.
Once Alice has her suspicions about her husband's infidelity confirmed,
instead of turning her back on the marriage, she decides to try to save
it, much to Archie and Felicity's (not to mention the audience's)
chagrin. This was an unexpected twist, and it leads to Jennifer's best
scene, when her hopes of reconciliation aren't just dashed, but
completely crushed, by Sam's confession that he was never in love with
her.
Fans of Jennifer Love Hewitt will no doubt get more out
of "The Truth About Love" than the casual viewer. I found it
consistently entertaining and funny, although not entirely as romantic
as it should have been. (Once again, this is probably due to a lack of
screentime for Scott, and a lack of shared screens between the Archie
and Alice character in the first two acts.) Ironically, although she
started out life as a Hollywood starlet, Hewitt has probably done her
best screen work in "Truth" and her previous British outing,
the fantasy "If
Only". And hey, her English accent is pretty good; another
couple of Brit flicks and she should sound more British than Madonna.
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