The Awful Truth
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DVD details
Actor: Alexander D'Arcy, Cary Grant, Cecil Cunningham, Irene Dunne, Ralph BellamyBrand: Sony
DVD: Region Code 99
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Portuguese (Subtitled); Japanese (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 91 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-03-11
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
DVD Reviews of The Awful Truth
DVD Review: Escape from reality movie
Summary: 2 Stars
This is an astonishing movie. It's called The Awful Truth, so you would expect some terrifying truths in store. Think of the year it was released - 1937. The world was mired in depression. Americans were jobless and insecure, without the Welfare net to save them, and it was considered a disgrace to be on government relief. Across the pond, Europe was insane and violent, the German people having lost their minds, following a madman, arming as quickly as possible to take over all Europe, and then all America, with their new long-range weapons already in construction, already persecuting their religious minority. Japan was making its move on China. Granted, the Far East seemed far away back then, but clearly Satan was walking the Earth, in a manner of speaking.
And what is America watching at the movies? A charming, cultivated, cultured, unruffled fellow named Cary Grant without a financial problem in the world, upper crust to the core, seeming British in a way, so far above it all. His biggest concern is to get a nice tan in order to fool his wife into thinking that on his separate vacation he actually went where he said he was going to go. The implication, never confirmed, is that he was out having an affair with another woman, when he was supposed to be in Florida getting a tan.
So what we have here is an "escape from reality" movie for Americans to watch, a little like a baby's milk bottle. Let's forget the misery around us, the insecurity, the terror, the awful truth, for an hour and a half. Let's lose ourselves in its antithesis. Let's watch a light comedy with Cary Grant.
And Cary is just the man to pull it off, to give America a short break from its tension, a nation on the verge of entering the fray, the world war that will cost the lives of millions. We don't want to look at that awful truth. Let's look at this one instead.
This movie is a "light comedy", but when you think about it, it deals with the weightiest of problems. Infidelity within marriage, and divorce, are not light issues. They are the issues that hit us closest to home. They tear us apart inside. They bring tears. They bring physical violence. They lead to many of our murders and suicides. They sure bring a lot of shouting and emotion.
And this movie has the Mrs also apparently guilty of infidelity on her separate vacation. Irene Dunn has just spent the entire night shacked up with a handsome Frenchman. You know what that means. Their excuse, that "the car broke down", is of course the oldest in the business. She is conspicuously absent when Cary arrives home with his artificial tan from a tanning salon. The lady she supposedly spent the entire vacation with is also waiting for her, wondering where she's been these past weeks.
Did I miss something here? Wasn't Irene supposedly with her aunt for the entire vacation? How would a car breakdown explain such a long absence? It's all left vague in the movie. We are meant to assume that both spouses are cheating.
Perhaps this is just a lighthearted swinging couple, happy in its freedom. But no, that's not what we are given. These two people love each other, as the ending shows. No, I don't think I'm spoiling anything for you. Any idiot can tell, from the get-go, what the ending is going to be. You don't need to be Einstein to figure out that Cary and Irene are getting back together at the end. As in "duhhhh".
This is a movie dealing with a tragic storyline that is played for fun. Cary is unruffled by the whole thing. He is losing his beloved wife. She is cheating on him with the proverbial Frenchman. His entire world has come crashing down. And Irene has just experienced the same disaster, losing her beloved husband, presented with proof of his dishonesty as she is handed a Florida orange with California stamped on it.
This is in a sense a surreal movie. Do I really believe that the car broke down? Am I even meant to believe that Cary has been faithful? For movie purposes, I am definitely being told to believe that the car broke down, at least. If not, America would turn its back on this unfaithful wife and toss her to the curb, as they winked conspiratorially to Cary the cheating husband.
Cary is who the American male wanted to be in 1937. Rich, carefree, charming, unruffled, above it all, getting all the action, and even macho, as he chases the Frenchman out of his house after pounding him, all without much emotion of course. No fear, no emotion, no vulnerability. In short, no reality. Why do we have to face the awful truths in our lives.
So cavalier, so debonair, so in control. Nice way to be. Wouldn't you like to be that way? In your tensest moments, wouldn't you like to refrain from yelling, refrain from succumbing to tension, and just come up with a bon mot? The only violence in the movie is the Cary vs Frenchie fight, which is handled off screen in a closed bathroom when Frenchie is in fact shown to be completely innocent, and Americans get the comforting picture of Frenchie running away from our hero, hot in pursuit.
This movie is called a light comedy, and some of the reviewers have labeled it "hilarious". It didn't make me laugh once. It reminds me of white powder on the faces of middle aged or elderly ladies. It is superficial and it covers up the truth. It puts a happy face on a troubled situation. There's really nothing funny going on here, when you think about it.
Cary Grant was a good actor, but he was typecast in the same type of role, playing the same type of character, in too many films. John Wayne had the same situation, a good actor who was typecast in the same type of role over and over again. Acting consists of playing a variety of roles, losing yourself in the role, becoming someone else, convincingly. When all you are called upon to do is revisit a role you have already done many times before, in this case playing Mr Debonair, that's not acting anymore. That's more like pottery making, churning out the same pot again.
It would be great to be able to handle a devastating experience like marital infidelity and divorce with such coolness as Cary Grant does. I'd like to be like that too. I'd like to be untouched by it all. I'd like to be able to just come up with a smart line, and then go off to date a rich heiress who desires me, take her to the track, and cash in another winning ticket.
Description of The Awful Truth
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