One out of
Five stars
Running time:
95 mins
Unwatchable British romcom with a terrible script, inept direction and a trio of lousy performances from its leads – this is one of the worst films of the year.
What's it all about?
Jennifer Love Hewitt dons a terrible wig and an even worse accent (reportedly dubbed, but even so, it's still awful) to play Alice, a British nurse who's blissfully unaware that her smarmy lawyer husband, Sam (Jimi Mistry) is having an affair and that his best friend, Archie (Dougray Scott) has a massive crush on her. When Archie drunkenly sends Alice an anonymous Valentine's card, he sets in motion a series of increasingly unlikely events.
The Bad
After co-starring in Things To Do Before You're Thirty, Jimi Mistry and Dougray Scott now have the distinction of starring in two of the worst British films ever made. The only remotely original thing about The Truth About Love is that it's set in Bristol rather than London.
The script is so bad that every line will leave you cringing in horror.
Scott, to his credit, seems to realise this and sleepwalks through his part accordingly, but Mistry and Hewitt plough on regardless, striving for quirky and ending up annoying (Mistry) or just plain embarrassing (Hewitt).
The Worst
There's not a single funny moment in the entire film (not even in a so bad, it's good sort of way) and there's no chemistry at all between the leads. To make matters worse, the film includes a phone sex scene that is genuinely painful to watch.
Since the romance doesn't work, the film's tedious race-against-time climax (Archie is about to sail away on the boat he's just built) flounders horribly as a result. But by then you'll have ceased to care.
Worth seeing?
This is a shockingly bad film, by anyone's standards. There's not a single convincing moment and it's sadly lacking in both romance and comedy. It doesn't even deliver on its title. One to avoid.
Film Trailer
The Truth About Love (15)