The politics of The Truth About Cats & Dogs is likely to be the last place with which people will find fault with the film; the idea of two women, one of whom is identified within as more photogenic than the other, switching identities for sake of observing which it is an ignorant to the situation young man will go for, is importantly played out honestly and correctly. It is the getting there within which the problems lie, those to whom the film is pitched will have to suffer the sitting through of misplaced phone sex sequences and some needlessly colourful language, while the rest of us, for whom the adult content will just sail past, will have to sit through a message-movie that'll already have been mapped out in most of the audience's minds if the natural conclusion point to which the film arrives hasn't already been prefigured before in their lives. Ultimately, The Truth About Cats & Dogs happens for absolutely no reason at all; other than to perhaps shuffle onto screens a meek message-movie about looks, rational thinking, male presumption and so-forth which are all items that happen to have been dealt with before and in more engaging fashions. The truth about The Truth About Cats & Dogs is that it's just not up to an awful lot.
The film eventually comes to cover three predominant characters, the one with whom we start being a local disc-jockey in a warm; welcoming movie version of Los Angeles named Abby Barnes (Garofalo), a disc-jockey whose show specialises in veterinarian problems and animal issues. Seemingly lonely, living by herself in an apartment with her pet cat, and sexless for three years, she excels at her job more often than not made easier by the subdued level of callers whom ring in with the slightest of problems that she's usually capable of fixing without breaking a sweat. Abby's neighbour at her apartment complex is the ditzy, flimsy Noelle (Thurman); essentially a bit of a write-off of a human being, a model with some serious marital issues of her own in that she appears able to have most men without possessing the ability to maintain any kind of lasting bond with them. A woman, who upon hearing Abby has abstained from sexual encounters for all of three years, appears somewhat disturbed at such a happening.
Enter Brian (Chaplin), a young English photographer working in L.A. whose call to Abby's show spawns all manner of events; a man in love with Abby's demeanour and intelligence but with Noelle's looks when he comes on down to the studio; the lab rat around which the study of male perception of the opposite gender, or how a woman's looks can blind a man to some seemingly obvious truths, plays out. For the most part, Chaplin essentially does the Hugh Grant act: the dozy but charming British male, who's a bit bleary eyed, but we don't mind 'cause that's all part of his charm, as he fumbles through these exchanges with women, usually foreign, in a happy and jolly manner in a desirable enough locale. Curiously, with Brian arrives an air of misogyny; distorting sequences with an African American supporting character who's a work colleague of his carrying with them notions of ill-thinking and nastiness, so much so that we question as to whether Brian would even work with a man of an African American ilk given his rather raging narrow mindedness. The item of persona swapping which later plays out between the women appears in contrast to that of Brian's own in-presence/not-in-presence attitudes in regards to the female characters when he certainly acts in a less appealing way.
Young Brian is put through the proverbial wringer when Noelle and Abby decide to enforce that switch: idiotic and po-faced, but strikingly beautiful, Noelle now the expert veterinarian with Abby relegated to that of, well, a nobody living next door with her cat. The concept of this comedy outlined, that Chaplin loves Noelle's exterior but Abby's interior, and that everybody's pretending Noelle has both, kicks off all manner of both 'hilarious' hijinks and shenanigans, such is how the pitch would have gone in the producer's office. The film has fun with Abby's own liberation from her supposedly repressed confines linked to that of both exposure to the male gender and (lack of) sexual episodes, when she is granted access to Brian – access, of which, is only ever over the phone, in a manner often nothing more than moderately smirk-inducing but is rarely anything worse than slightly uninteresting. The lead is granted an escape from the celebrificated voice-over role as the radio vet, but is only allowed to do so under the guise of being a stunningly attractive blonde model whose face is fit for billboards; a notion supposedly highlighting that of the shallow nature of both contemporary men and, for the most, part contemporary culture.
Where, you might say, screwball comedies of old centred around degrees of gender swap or gender transfusion, The Truth About Cats & Dogs, like a young moggy with its ball of string, loosely toys with this idea via the guise of a personality switch; the piece ultimately a middling effort which falls short of the line but isn't without premeditated charm which comes about purely because it throws its politics up into the air and all of it neatly falls back down again. If we're all brutally honest, the premise begins as a joke but comes to near enough render the film itself a joke; a film which spends its time toying with its gimmick via an array of goofy scenes before seeing things out into its final third with melancholic character content and an obligatory reveal. It isn't without that indifferent charm, but it certainly isn't with an awful lot more.
2 out of 5 found this helpful.
Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
