If you’re looking forward to this movie simply because of Paris Hilton, you’ll be very disappointed, because even die-hard fans of Hilton have been turning their back on this film. At least that’s what a weekend’s worth of domestic box-office takings of US$27,700, according to Box Office Mojo, should suggest. In the same time, the website cited teen pregnancy comedy Juno for raking in a phenomenal US$4.6 million.

What Plot?

To be sure the plot of The Hottie and Nottie is cliche, borrowing successful elements of sweet loser rediscovers childhood sweetheart and schemes to get her, together with gross jokes, from 1998’s There’s Something About Mary, and fix up undesirable sister (or in this case best friend) of said sweetheart from Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew, so she can be free to fall in love.

In this case, it is Nate (Joel Moore), who’s had the biggest crush on Cristabel since elementary school, who desperately sets her best gal pal and pug-ugly June up with dates, to woo Cristabel, who notes that she and her best friend “don’t get much action”.

Unfortunately, it only requires a nanomillimeter of your brain to watch this movie. The plot is so brainless that you can practically be sleepwalking and still predict the outcome of events in the movie.

The underlying premise may be that beauty is more than skin deep, which is why Nate eventually falls out of love with Cristabel and develops feelings for June.

But how true does this idealistic drivel ring when it only happens after June undergoes an extreme makeover, and suddenly also loses all the gross habits such as the flicking of a diseased toenail to a potential date, that made her the nightmare date of the 21st century?

The Two Performers

It doesn’t surprise anyone that Hilton plays Cristabel, the “Hottie”, in the movie. After all she has the figure and the willingness to flaunt it. But for someone who has hundreds of actor friends, you’d think she’d at least pick up a few acting tips along the way, as her acting is extremely ghastly.

For the most part, Paris Hilton deliberately puts on a high-pitched cutesy voice that grates your nerves, you’d want to cut off her helium supply. If that’s not irritating enough, she moves her head around constantly when she’s talking – a sign that she’s nervous in front of the camera even though her character is supposed to be a super confident Hottie. It also makes you think she’s reading off cue cards.

She’d have done a whole lot better if she had displayed the same enthusiasm and fire in her debut film One Night In Paris.

Which makes it all even easier for mostly TV actress Christina Lakin to outshine Hilton in the movie. Lakin plays June, the “Nottie”, a girl so physically repulsive that UrbanWire is certain that Hilton will not want to be friends with her in real life.

Unlike Hilton, Lakin, who had her TV debut in 1991, is a natural in front of the camera, despite the make-up that has transformed her physical beauty into its opposite. She also manages to portray the change in June’s character throughout the process of her makeover very subtly but precisely, bv toning down the obnoxious body language and tone of voice.

Having acted in films such as The Game Plan, which has a total local box office earnings of $1,074,592, and Georgia Rule, the Lindsay Lohan movie that’s only released on DVD in Singapore, Lakin is wasted on this poor excuse of a movie, though she is up for roles in 3 upcoming movies which are yet to be released – Red Canyon, Super Capers and Patsy.

Too much talking

To up the boring factor, The Hottie And The Nottie is crammed with lots of dialogues, most of which are cheesy, corny and provides little development to the story, such as “the hotness of one girl is directly proportional to the ugliness of her best friend”, “a life without orgasms is like a life without flowers” and “She has teeth, they’re just not the conventional shape”.

Cinematography

The slow motion shots, especially on Hilton, are particularly pointless and evocative of the advertisement she shot for fast food joint Carl’s Jr., or any Baywatch episode. We already know how hot her character is, and if that’s the main point of the movie, it needn’t have run for 90 minutes.

Abrupt scene transitions were jarring and only worsen the audience’s experience.

Surprisingly, Tom Putnam, the director of The Hottie And The Nottie is a 9 time award-winning director/writer/producer. His autobiographical independent film Tom Hits His Head alone, won 8 awards in film festivals such as the Ashland Independent Film Festival and the SXSW Film Festival. This commercial release of The Hottie And The Nottie does not do his resume nor his talent justice.

The Verdict

If you try hard enough, you might be able to find, in the movie, important lessons of lifelong friendship and the importance of never judging a book by cover – all of which are trite, but the audience can identify with.

However, it’s too much of an insult to lay on the cheesy lines, wooden acting, or an immature and unoriginal storyline. Hilton’s desperate attempt at proving herself to be a talented individual by playing the hot and desirable girl, a role she is familiar with in real life. This only makes the movie funnier – for all the wrong reasons.

This film definitely scores an “A”-for-effort from Christina Lakin, but a “F”-for-performance from Paris Hilton. Watch at your own risk.

UrbanWire gives The Hottie and The Nottie 1 out of 5 stars

Movie Details

Opens: Apr 17

Movie Rating: PG

Running Time: 90 mins

Language: English

Cast: Paris Hilton, Joel Moore, Christine Lakin

Director: Tom Putnam