the audience applauded

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

One of the previous reviewers wrote: "It's Cyrano de Bergerac on the surface but more of a sitcom in its substance," and even that's a stretch.Cyrano is ugly, big-time ugly. So ugly that his own mother had no love for him, and no woman has been willing to love him.The female host of the radio show that gives this movie its name, "The Truth about Cats and Dogs," Abbey, is not ugly in any way. She may not be a striking beauty, but then, neither is Uma Thurman/Noelle, the neighbor she passes off as herself to the caller who wants to meet her. One is short, the other tall. One is brunette, the other blonde. One a little on the plump side - but only a little; the other skinny. Abbey is not ugly while Noelle is strikingly beautiful. Abbey has one kind of beauty, Noelle another.Cyrano de Bergerac is about a truly ugly man who wins the heart of Roxanne by the extraordinary beauty of his language, a non-physical type of beauty. He very definitely does not have just "another kind" of physical beauty. He very definitely has NO physical attractiveness whatsoever.Abbey, on the other hand, has bought into a socially-conditioned idea of what men find attractive - tall, thin, blonde - but it's really all in her mind, since her friend Noelle isn't all that attractive, and Abbey herself is certainly not unattractive. We don't really get a chance to see if Brian really started by buying into the same social convention, since he was told by Abbey over the phone that she was tall, blonde, thin, etc. We never see him attracted to tall, blonde, thin dumbbells whom he knows to be dumbbells.When Brian tries to explain what he finds attractive in the woman he has spoken to over the phone, he basically says: "She's nice." Abbey gives no indications of a remarkable, poetic command of language either on her radio show or over the phone. Noelle on occasion - but only on occasion, and not very convincingly - comes off as dumb. Brian says that he likes intelligence, but he gives no indication of being intelligent himself, nor of having been attracted to anyone else for her intelligence. So we never really understand why he becomes attracted to Abbey. She's pleasant, but then so is Noelle.The three leads are all pleasant, but the movie doesn't really seem to know what point it wants to make. If it's "a handsome guy can fall in love with a woman even if she isn't beautiful, as long as she has a striking character," this movie doesn't make that point clearly or convincingly. Abbey just isn't sufficiently not-beautiful, or sufficiently striking in terms of her character, for us to buy that argument. Nor, unlike Roxanne in Cyrano de Bergerac, is Brian ever presented as really interested in qualities other than physical beauty, so that his final attraction to Abbey comes off as convincing.

As far as Hollywood romantic comedies go, there is little to differentiate them from one another. The girl and the guy get together in the end after forgiving each other for the deceit that they have pulled (or they simply get together after spending an hour and a half of film time chasing or being chased by the other). You might be gasping in shock and saying "you gave away the end," but think about it, how else does a Hollywood romance end. The only Hollywood movie that I can think of at the moment where the main characters do not get together at the end is Edward Scissorhands (and no, Romeo and Juliet does not count, because that is not a romantic comedy, but then again, neither is Edward Scissorhands).Abby is a vet who hosts a radio show called the Truth about Cats and Dogs where she helps people who have problems with their pets. Noah (Uma Thurman) is a model whose boyfriend is also her agent and lives down the hall from Abbey. Abbey is short with brown hair and Noah is a six foot tall blonde. Abbey is intelligent, Noah is not. One day Abbey helps a young English photographer tame a dog over the phone and the photographer wants to thank her, but Abbey, who is very conscious about her appearance, describes herself as Noah. Thus a deceit begins where this man's perfect woman is in fact two.Overall this movie was entertaining. The phone sex scene, in my opinion, was disgusting and I will not justify it. Even my friend, who has a rather warped sense of humour, thought it was disgusting. I guess the whole concept of love is when two people are together, and not separated by a telephone. I hate telephones as there is a huge gap between us and one that a true personal relationship cannot cross.The movie was funny, and thus it seems that the Americans are getting a better sense of humour, but in general, it was typically Hollywood. Still, when one thinks about it, a romantic comedy should have a happy ending. All of Shakespeare's comedies had happy endings where as the tragedies, like Edward Scissorhands, did not. I enjoyed it, but wouldn't label it as brilliant.

This film is one of the biggest pieces of crap I have ever seen. Both the leading ladies are fugly, especially Uma Thurman but she is supposed to be beautiful. I also love how they try to portray smoking as cool, as if this movie was made in the 1940's.The premise is thin and completely moronic. I can't believe someone was paid to write this garbage. It's not even good mindless fun and entertainment.Honestly, I really found nothing good in this film and I just want to warn others to avoid it at all costs.This is clearly a film aimed at very stupid women.

I found out about this film because Jewish Ben Chaplin from Game On was in it. Game On is a funny British sitcom and apparently he left because he wanted to break into Hollywood and star in this film. He failed thank God.The film is a very simple romantic comedy with Janeane Garofalo playing an ugly woman who uses her neighbour Uma Thurman to date Ben Chaplin because she thinks Ben Chaplin won't like her because she's ugly. The film is just bad for so many reasons. The plot is unbelievably predictable from the overtly slapstick bits to the serious mushy bits: ugh just that montage where all three of them are having fun and then the photograph bit. Those two scenes made me cringe! Janeane's character is sickeningly arrogant (and guessing from her role as stand-up "comedienne" and arch-feminist is in real life too). She claims that the film is "anti-feminist" when in fact it's just realistic. Men more often than not go for looks over personality. It's interesting to note her hypocrisy too. She'd been a feminist and "comedienne" for years before taking this role and then suddenly decides afterwards that the film was bad. I imagine she hated the idea and script of this film before it was released but she made sure she kept that quiet so she could get paid for this travesty of a film. I mean come on! She acted in it for Heaven's sake! What this film was really was anti-men if anything. It portrays men as stupid animals whose brains are in their groins with the men doing stupid things to attract the attention of Uma Thurman's character Noelle.There are other bad things about this film too like Ben Chaplin's character being the British man every American girl finds cute and Jamie Foxx being the token black best friend of Chaplin and of course Foxx had to try and mimic his accent a few times for good measure. Is that the best the script writers could come up with? Blimey they've never done that before except with every Hugh Grant and Dudley Moore film ever made. There's also a truly awful phone sex scene which is just grotesque and proves how cheap the film is. The other comments on here all say how Janeane Garofalo isn't ugly but is actually beautiful. Erm was I watching the same film as they were? She's certainly no looker and the only good thing about this film was that she was rightly cast as the ugly one. Although having said that, I fail to see the appeal of Uma Thurman as well: she's lanky and gaunt looking.I guarantee three things about this film if you've never watched it:You will know what the ending will be;You will find the phone sex scene painfully embarrassing and;You will be bored after ten minutes.Watch at your own peril.