Familiar Plot Doesn’t Hurt ‘Cats And Dogs’
Hollywood seems to be in a rut. Not a rut in the normal, negative sense, but a good rut. Movie after movie comes out with the same background: Generation Xers writing and directing movies about Generation Xers.
To assist in this rut, an excellent crop of young actors and actresses are on the scene. “The Truth about Cats and Dogs,” staring Janeane Garofalo and Uma Thurman, defines this rut.
“Truth” follows roughly the same story line as the classic “Cyrano d’Bergerac” with the genders reversed. Garofalo stars as Abby Barnes, a radio personality who hosts a show about animals.
One day, a guy named Brian calls in for Abby’s help with an unruly dog. One thing leads to another and Brian (played by Ben Chaplin) wants to meet her. Abby isn’t confident about her looks, so when asked to describe herself, she instead passes along the features of her next door neighbor, a tall blonde fashion model.
The same day, Abby meets this neighbor (Uma Thurman). In a strange-but-not-confusing scene, Caplin shows up at the station to see Garofalo, but since Thurman is there he thinks she is Abby and Garofalo is just a friend.
Thurman dates him for a while, with Garofalo often tagging along, while Brian talks to Abby every night on the phone. Garofalo tries to explain to him what’s going on, but never finds the courage.
The next plot twist is fairly predictable - Thurman falls in love with Chaplin, just as Abby did in the beginning. You can guess what happens from here; I won’t give it away.
Throughout the movie, I felt like one of the main characters was stealing the show. But, in fact, all three of them were equally phenomenal. The chemistry between Chaplin and Garofalo is fantastic. It is the one thing in the movie that can make you forget Thurman exists.
That’s not to say she wasn’t fun as well. As she did in “Pulp Fiction,” Thurman makes the audience love her with her seductive smile and ditzy facade.
When I think about it, it seems like “The Truth about Cats and Dogs” could do no wrong. It combined today’s no-rules, no-inhibitions filmmaking with one of the greatest love stories of all time. Not a bad combination.
Grade: A-