The Hottie and The Nottie
Just like an overheated cup of McDonald’s coffee, the Hottie and the Nottie should have a warning label. Unfortunately the contents are not hot. There really are very few reasons why someone should want to see this film in the first place. If you do happen to have an incredibly hot date that refuses to go to any other movie, or if you are such a die hard Paris Hilton fan that you need to see every moment of celluloid that she is on, I would recommend that you skip all the reviews of the film and don’t read the plot synopsis. In fact you should stop reading this review right now.
The basic premise of the film is that Nate has decided that his relationships haven’t been working out because he is still in love with his childhood sweetheart Cristabelle (Paris Hilton). The plot revolves around him trying to overcome the kicker. Cristabelle has an ugly best friend June and Cristabelle has sworn off men until June gets hooked up with someone.
The movie is based on a common plot element: One girl is desired because of her looks, but is shallow and another girl has “a good personality”, but is not attractive because of her appearance. This plot hook has been used to varying degrees of success in a number of movies. Unfortunately, The Hottie and The Nottie uses the basic plot twists almost verbatim. Every time that one of the new elements is introduced you can safely say how it will be resolved and when it will pan out in the film. For instance, a potential suitor for June is hypnotized into thinking that she is hot. The phrase to make him snap out is “I love midget mimes”. The next thing that they do is go to the carnival on the pier and, hey presto… a midget mime!
The acting was on par with the writing for the film. With one-sided characters none of the cast had a stand out performance. The best casting was June’s later suitor Johann. The role, though incredibly shallow, was played to a T. Paris did have one spectacularly stand-out scene, however at the time she was acting like a drunk whore, so it is quite possible that they just had her chug a fifth of vodka before they started shooting.
With all that failures in the film I do have to give them credit, they have taken this style of film to a whole new level; in previous incarnations, the unattractive girl simply had superficial problems; frizzy hair, glasses, second-hand clothes, and no makeup. The Hottie and the Nottie has really moved things forward. June suffers from severe acne, thinning hair, infected toenails and dental issues. They have taken it from “What is inside a person makes them attractive” to “If you have surgery you can be attractive because of what is inside of you”. Now all those sad lonely girls will look forward to laser hair removal, dental reconstruction, and plastic surgery so that men will stop jumping off boats to get away from them.
All this movie brings to the table is a cornucopia of failed jokes, a trite and predictable plot, lame duck acting, and not even enough T&A to get a rise out of a frat boy. Paris had a line in the film “A life without orgasms is like a world without flowers” and the world of The Hottie and The Nottie is a world without flowers.