The Hottie & the Nottie

“The Hottie & the Nottie”

USA. 2008. Directed by Tom Putnam. Written by Heidi Ferrer. Starring: Paris Hilton, Christine Lakin, Joel David Moore, Johann Urb, Adam Kulbersh, The Greg Wilson, Marianne Muellerleile, Kathryn Fiore, Morgan Rusler, Erin Cardillo, Kayley Scott Collins, Caleb Guss, Kurt Doss and Alessandra Daniele.

Rating: 0 stars (and that's being nice)

The Hottie and the Nottie is an entity so horribly incompetent and abysmally inept that it makes you actually feel sorry for putting down 99% of the other painfully bad movies you may have derided in the past. Most bad, even unwatchable movies have at least some remnants of evidence that define themselves as a “movie.” To even call this project a “movie” and see the fact that some studio executive actually paid money to put it on celluloid instead of donating to charity make me cringe.

In general, I personally try not to judge a thespian on screen based on how messed up or hated his or her off-screen persona may be. So I watched the movie with every ounce of charity within myself to see whether Paris Hilton had an iota of talent on the screen. After watching this disaster, my charity for watching her as well as for writer Heidi Ferrer and director Tom Putnam is completely spent. There are plenty of other struggling actresses who can at least play a human being with a semblance of a real personality on screen and the so-called filmmakers know no shame for catering down to Hilton’s nadir of acting and creating a role like this for any actor of any caliber.

The story (if you can even call in that) centers around how Hilton’s character, Christabel Abbott is supposed to be the most adored beauty in all of L.A. Men literally drool over her while she goes jogging on the beach while the camera pants along with them like a dog in slow motion. One of those guys is Nate Cooper (Joel David Moore), a relentlessly nerve-grating low-life who has just gotten dumped by his girlfriend (how does he manage to find a girlfriend anyway?) after singing a “love” song based on all the things she has annoyed him with on his guitar (which he gets deservedly smacked with). The reason: He believes he has been in love with Christabel since they were in first grade and thus moves to L.A. to be with her after creepily sniffing her out while she is jogging. Unfortunately, for him, as the title suggests, she has vowed herself to never dating until her friend, the supposed “Nottie,” June Phigg (Christine Lakin) finds a special someone who can look past the warts, pimples and excessive hair on her face and legs.

Does this sound like a premise that should be made into a feature film? There are many things that insult and annoy in this from the indolent acting and direction to the idiotic, humorless writing but the most insulting is in how it thinks any guy would even get close to Hilton’s shallow, almost zombie-like quality of having no trace of a human trait and think she is actually “hot.” Even her face stays stiff like a mannequin and just looks consistently exhausted (probably because she is so straining to act). At least there is a tiny smidgen of wit in Lakin’s June and even the average Joe would see that she is donning a makeup job so horribly fake that it would shame even the lowest-rent Elementary School Theater. Wait, I take that insult to Elementary School Theater back actually, since the smartest people in this whole project are the 6-year old versions of the central characters who become these unfunny dimwits after the first two minutes.

Then, just when one thinks the movie cannot get any worse, the story practically redefines the lows of superficiality with the entrance of a plastic surgeon character, Johann Wulrich (Johann Urb). Nate, in all of his infinite wisdom, thinks Johann is supposed to be competition for Christabel until he starts to think that June is not looking so bad either. But, of course, the filmmakers, in all of their infinite depth, decide not to show that change until the plastic surgeon gives her a makeover surgically removing her fungal moles and warts (though, since the makeup looks so bad, I just wished someone would give her a large ball of wax to do the job). Need I say more about the depressingly witless hypocrisy with which the filmmakers deliver their happy ending (not to mention a plastic surgeon also falling for his patient is a bit creepy)?

Have I revealed too much? Remember I said that this was not worthy of being called a movie? Because of that, I am almost ashamed that I actually maintained my policy of sitting through every movie to the end instead of cutting out somewhere in between the 91 minutes of this thing. A movie is not what those behind this project have done. The Hottie and the Nottie is strictly an act of cinematic carnage that is committed, not made, by people who will need the rest of their careers to atone and recuperate (or maybe even seriously think about choosing another career) and one Paris Hilton who should realize that she would seriously get more love from the public if she does the most honorable thing of quitting acting altogether.