The Truth About Cats & Dogs The Truth About Cats & Dogs (Air Date: Week Of 4/24/96)
Abby is a bright, warm and funny radio vet, with big brown eyes to die for. Her best friend Noelle is a tall, slender & dictionary-challenged model, with the type of drop-dead beauty that makes guys walk into moving vehicles. Dr. Abby meets cute listener Brian via her call-in pet show when he asks for advice about the irrepressible Hank, the dog.
Brian loves Abby's advice, her mind & her voice, but Abby doesn't think she's pretty enough for a guy who would fall for all of the above, so she asks Noelle to pretend to be Abby around Brian. Noelle, who's used to being treated like spare change by her mean boyfriend -manager Roy, also thinks that Brian is cute, especially when he feeds her cheesecake with a fork.
If this were the thirties, Abby & Noelle would be played by two equally gorgeous and gifted stars and they would be clawing each other's throats and tearing each other's hair out by the roots by the second reel. But this is the nineties and the friendship between Janeane Garafolo's and Uma Thurman's characters clearly means a great deal to them. The guy, thankfully played by charming Ben Chaplin instead of chumpy Hugh Grant, gets lost in the eye of his One True Love & can't understand why the Other Woman is scatty around him.
It's good to see that director Michael "Heathers" Lehman is back on track after a seven year drought. Audrey Wells' delightful screenplay nails so many of the subtle undercurrents that would occur in real life these days & that's what sustains "The Truth About Cats & Dogs".
Copyright 1996 Monica Sullivan