'The Truth': Sensitive new age man meets plain-Jane

'The Truth': Sensitive new age man meets plain-Jane

By Jane Freebury

JAKARTA (JP): From an empty beach at midday the camera drifts
to a seaside suburb and the solitary pedestrian striding along
the pavement. She has a knapsack on her back, black stockings on
her legs, and Doc Martens on her feet, and is clothed in the
nondescript apparel of someone who wants to escape notice.

This short, stocky figure is on her way to work. It is Dr.
Abby Barnes (played by Janeane Garofalo), a veterinary doctor who
hosts a radio talk show dispensing advice to pet owners on how to
deal with fish that have stopped swimming, with cats that won't
stop licking, or dogs that won't keep still to have their photo
taken. You've got it. Sometimes she deals with whackos, but one
day a caller named Brian rings in. He doesn't own a pet, but has
a problem with one.

Brian (played by British actor Ben Chaplin) is a photographer
who has an assignment with a hound called Hank, but Hank is
rolling around on skates (Yes!) and having too much fun to
cooperate. Desperate, Brian calls in to Abby's talk show for some
of her pithy advice. Instructed to get down on all fours, stretch
out a "paw" and fondle the tips of Hank's ears, he discovers that
this works instantly. Hank becomes a model subject. Brian is so
impressed by Abby's persuasive talk show persona, and so
captivated with her wit and warmth, that he caves in to initial
resistance to her suggestion -- and takes Hank home as his pet.
Next day he rings the doctor and requests a meeting with her.

What does she look like so he will recognize her? Instantly
Abby loses her composure. Well, she's a whip-thin 5'10" tall and
blonde, she says, actually describing someone her very opposite,
like the Nordic snow-princess Noelle (Uma Thurman), a model,who
lives next-door in her apartment block.

From this point on the plot turns on the device of mistaken
identity, as Brian keeps thinking that the Noelle Slusarsky he
meets is the Abby Barnes he has fallen in love with over the
radio waves. He stops going out on assignments just to stay home
and listen to her timbre of her voice and the wit of her brisk
observations. Still Abby just can't get herself to confront Brian
with the truth -- that she's a personality girl and not a
stunner.

Noelle, who is just as scared about being seeming stupid as
Abby is scared about being confronted with her plainness, begins
to take a fancy to this charming and sensitive Brit with his
'snaggish' ways. He treats her as an intelligent being, unlike
Roy, the boyfriend manager who yells at her, and took his 15
percent cut away with her confidence.

What prevents Noelle having a relationship with Brian is her
friendship with Abby. Sisterly enough, though one of the film's
little implausibilities is that a scatty type like Noelle -- who
is incredulous when asked what she thinks about something --
could be a companion to Abby -- who plays violin and could cope
with reading a book of Simone de Beauvoir's letters to Jean-Paul
Sartre. Abby is more the mentor here. The relationship is more
like mother-daughter than sister to sister.

Despite its critique of the cult of physical beauty, an
uncomfortable truth about The Truth About Cats and Dogs is that
it still invites the viewer to judge Abby's looks and compare her
with her friend. But beauteous Noelle is no man-eater but a sweet
and awkward girl, who is also living on her own, gets mixed up
with the wrong sort of man, and is a prisoner to her beauty just
as Abby is imprisoned by a self-image that denies the
attractiveness of her nice brown eyes and her big smile.

In The Truth Thurman seems to step aside to allow Garofalo the
floor. Thurman, who will be better known to Jakarta audiences
from Pulp Fiction (as the vamp) and The Adventures of Baron
Munchausen (as goddess Venus), has top billing but it is Janeane
Garofalo's film. Even in the photographic session with both women
in Brian's studio apartment, the skillful direction of Michael
Lehmann is able to use the camera eye to find the beauty in
Garofalo, beside the more obviously photogenic Thurman.

Despite a less than glorious directorial career of late
(Airheads, Hudson Hawk), Lehmann's handling of his actors and his
material is intelligent and adroit. Some scenes are particularly
well managed -- such as the night of intimacy over the phone
between Brian and Abby -- and overall the tone is light and the
touch is sure. Lots of big closeups throughout ensure
identification, but the film sidesteps sentimentality.

The only unsympathetic character in this film is token macho
male Roy, not unlike the husband in that other memorable female
buddy movie, Thelma and Louise. With the sole exception of
boyfriend Roy (Who is incidentally allergic to cats. He will
therefore never be enlightened!) all of the men around, including
Abby's talk show producer and assistant, are supportive of women.

Go with a girlfriend to see The Truth About Cats and Dogs. As
much as I wanted to like other recent women's films How to Make
an American Quilt and Waiting to Exhale, I couldn't find the
spirit and generosity of this little film in either.

The Truth About Cats and Dogs could have gone further, it
could have pulled out the stops and developed into a more
extravagant comedy, after the style of a Cary Grant and Katherine
Hepburn vehicle like Howard Hawks' screwball classic Bringing up
Baby. Seeing a desirable hunk like Grant duped by a smart and
sassy Hepburn is an illicit pleasure for the female audience of
screwball comedy. But Brian was probably safe from being taught a
lesson because he had already earned his sensitive new age
credentials long before he rang up for the doctor's help.