The Truth About Cats and Dogs

OK. Hands up if you don’t think Ben Chaplin is a living doll. Good. Now hands up if wouldn’t wrap Janeane Garofalo up and take her home. Excellent. This is a very good start.

So The Truth About Cats and Dogs (1996) is neither new, nor is it particularly a classic. It is, however, a sweet and enjoyable piece of fluff, and one of my favourite guilty pleasures. So, yeah, I am the silent picture and Italian art film fan… But one does not live on art alone. Sometimes, you have to go for the cream and sugar, people, and this one, for me, is a sure fire winner.

Basically, The Truth About Cats and Dogs is Cyrano de Bergerac for women. Abby (Janeane Garofalo), a clever and successful radio animal expert, is funny and personable, but shy and not exactly classically beautiful. Her neighbour, Noelle (Uma Thurman), is tall, willowy, blond and beloved by about 97% of the straight male population with eyes. Abby falls for a sweet-natured and sexy British guy (Ben Chaplin), who also happens to be head-over-heels in love with the woman he met over the phone, who just happens to be Abby. Abby, however, is so certain that a handsome guy would have no interest in her that she mistakenly asks her friend Noelle to stand in for her. From there, we get the classic rom-com comedy of errors.

Follow me so far?

Naturally, all ends up well, and I don’t think I will spoil anyone’s expectations by hinting that the best woman wins.

So, what do we get here? A pleasant fiction, my inner-cynic tells me, in which men really can love a personality so much that they can ignore the outer-package. Actually, it is even more far-fetched than that – he doesn’t just ignore the outer package. His love for her sense of humour and intelligence actually makes her physically attractive to him.

Is this one for Ripley’s Believe it or Not? Can a man love a personality to the point where the body is secondary?

I don’t know the answer to that. Aside from the fact that Janeane Garofalo is still better looking than like 80% of all us lowly non-movie-star ladies out there, this is a pretty big fish story to swallow. Still, we the audience desperately wants to believe, and, somehow, despite the occasionally spotty acting and huge suspension of belief issues, the movie does manage to satisfy and is highly re-watchable.

One thing is for certain, as the information highway brings AIM, Yahoo and five million other forms of chat into our lives and living rooms, the answers to the questions raised in this film will take on a much larger significance for our society… And this pleasant fiction may find itself gaining legions of new followers who are ready, willing and desperate to believe its fairy tale ending.

So go, rent, enjoy. Who doesn’t like a pleasant fiction every once in a while?