The Hottie & the Nottie (2008) Regent/Comedy RT: 87 minutes Rated PG-13 (crude/gross humor, sexual content, drinking) Director: Tom Putnam Screenplay: Heidi Ferrer Music: David E. Russo Cinematography: Alex Vendler Release date: February 8, 2008 (US) Cast: Paris Hilton, Joel David Moore, Christine Lakin, Johann Urb, Adam Kulbersh, The Greg Wilson, Marianne Muellerleile, Kathryn Fiore, Scott Prendergast, Morgan Rusler, Ryan Alvarez. Box Office: $27,696 (US)/$1.5M (World)
Rating: NO STARS!!!
I avoided watching The Hottie & the Nottie because it looked especially bad. That really means something because I don’t ordinarily do that. I just couldn’t bring myself to watch a rom-com starring that most vapid of celebrities Paris Hilton. I can’t stand her. She reminds me of a life-sized Barbie doll brought to life for no other reason than to use up oxygen. She has both the personality and emotional range of a department store mannequin. At one point in this dreadful excuse for a comedy, somebody refers to her character as a “pod person”. I think it’s an accurate assessment of both the “actress” (a term I use VERY loosely!) and the vacuous character she plays.
As for The Hottie & the Nottie, it’s just plain awful. I only watched it because my old sixth grade teacher suggested it. Actually, it was more like he dared me to watch it. My decision to take that dare is something I’ll regret for the rest of my natural life. It’s crass, obnoxious, nauseating, tasteless, vulgar, grotesque, mean-spirited, idiotic, ineptly made, tacky, crude and offensive. What it’s not is funny, not at any time and not for even a nanosecond. It’s one of those “comedies” that will have you reaching for a barf bag. To this day, I still can’t believe The Hottie & the Nottie played in respectable theaters. However, I find it easy to believe they all dumped it after a week.
Ms. Hilton plays Cristabel, the dream girl of one Nate Cooper (Moore, Grandma’s Boy) who’s had a crush on her since the first grade. He’s no dream guy. He’s the kind of guy whose ex-girlfriend spray paints “loser” on his car. It’s this break-up that prompts good old Nate to track down Cristabel in L.A. Okay, that’s not too creepy. Wait a minute, yes it is! He’s creepy too. When he finds her, he learns she’s sworn off dating and sex until her best friend June (Lakin, Step by Step) finds somebody. So what’s the problem? June is hideously ugly. She’s all body hair, moles and rotten teeth not to mention a really gnarly toenail. Finding this girl a date might require a trip to a school for the blind and even that’s no guarantee. Ugly can be felt as well as seen.
Nate agrees to find June a boyfriend so he can get with Cristabel. What follows is an unfunny series of gags involving guys recoiling at June’s looks and Nate’s embarrassment as he tries to set her up with a dentist (Urb, Resident Evil: Retribution) who sees her inner beauty. It’s not important how he found him; it’s too stupid to even merit an explanation. As Nate tries to get closer to Cristabel, something unexpected (to anyone who’s never seen or heard of rom-coms) starts to happen.
That’s right, The Hottie & The Nottie is also an “ugly duckling” transformation story. We all know that June will transform into a hot babe before the end of the movie. We also know who will hook up with whom by the end. There are no surprises here, none at all. That is, except for the fact that studio execs actually allowed it to be released. Like I already said, it’s not funny. Instead, it’s gross and I’m not talking funny-gross like Pink Flamingos. It’s just gross! While I sat there not laughing, a couple of things crossed my mind:
-Nate doesn’t appear to have any kind of job, so how can he afford to pursue Cristabel and find a guy for June? At one point, he gives them a $2000 gift certificate for a day spa. Where did he get the money? Did he sell blood? A kidney? His sperm?
-June attends a costume party dressed as Audrey Hepburn’s character from Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Given the movie’s story arc, wouldn’t it have been more appropriate for her to dress as Hepburn’s character from My Fair Lady?
When I wasn’t pondering these burning questions, I was taking note of the horrible dialogue the actors are forced to recite. I think Paris got the two worst lines in the movie. I will now quote them, no need to worry about the context in which they were used. First one, “I think that a life without orgasms is like a world without flowers”. Later on, she says to June “Some people think our bodies are like an Earth suit, a vessel that carries our soul until you pass on from this planet into the next dimension.” C’mon, who says stuff like this? Moreover, who writes stuff like this? Eh, it’s all academic anyway. There’s no way Cristabel (or Paris, for that matter) is intelligent enough to have such deep thoughts much less put them so eloquently.
The only funny thing related to The Hottie & the Nottie is Paris thinking she’s a good enough actress to star in her own picture. Where did she get the idea she could act? I guess being executive producer allows you certain indulgences. Everybody involved indulged her on this one. She delivers every line in a robotic monotone wearing an empty-headed smile the entire time. If you look at her long enough, you can almost see the neon VACANCY sign flashing directly above her head. Referring to her as an actress is an insult to the profession and everybody in it.
Just as bad is Moore, a romantic lead we can all root against. He speaks in a whiny, nasally tone that makes you want to smack him across the back of his head as hard as you can. If you want to know what he looks like, just look up “annoying” in the dictionary. There’s probably a picture of him right there. As for Lakin, I can only say she’s the least of the evils since her role merely requires her to be humiliated at every turn. I don’t know what she got paid to be in this rotten movie, but it wasn’t enough. No amount of money can compensate for the level of humiliation that comes with appearing in a movie as rotten as this.
If nothing else, The Hottie & the Nottie is consistent in its badness. It’s always painful to watch. Take the scene where Nate, in a feeble attempt to impress Cristabel, weaves an incredible lie about being a stunt pilot who takes underprivileged kids for plane rides. Don’t ask, you don’t want to know. There are many to blame for this fiasco starting with Paris herself. Her vanity project is an exercise in self-indulgence, self-centeredness and bad taste. The screenplay by Heidi Ferrer is completely bereft of humor and original ideas. It’s as stale as two-day-old bread. It’s directed by documentary filmmaker Tom Putnam who wisely hasn’t made another comedy since. He has no sense of comic timing. The “jokes” don’t just fall flat; they crash right through the floor.
To be fair, I’ve seen comedies worse than The Hottie & the Nottie. Okay, there’s only one, It’s Pat: The Movie, and only by a hair. Mr. Hyperbole would like to chime in and say it makes Corky Romano and The Animal look like comic masterpieces. It achieves a subterranean level of badness that can only be measured by a seismograph. It’s not only embarrassing for all involved; it’s embarrassing for the viewers too. It turned out worse than anybody could have imagined. I’m actually surprised some coalition of unattractive people didn’t call for a boycott. Then again, maybe they realized the best way to hurt The Hottie & the Nottie would be to not call attention to it at all. Why dignify it by condemning it? This movie is completely and utterly worthless on every level known to man, woman, child, dog, cat, bird, fish, platypus, amoeba, etc.
