The Awful Truth Essay Example

Leo McCarey's largely improvised 1937 film "The Awful Truth" is a screwball comedy ranking among the funniest and most pleasurable comedy of the Hollywood. The film concerns the machination of a couple, Irene Dunne and Cary Grant who soon are to be divorced as they go to great heights of trying to ruin their romantic escapades. The film from the sketchy script that usually leaves the audience befuddled and bewildered focuses on various genres and the paper aims to analyze those genres as they relate to the movie.

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The premise of the film is on a pending divorce of a couple suspecting each other of infidelity. The comedy begins when Jerry who is Cary Grant returns from a fake trip falsely claiming it was Florida only to find his wife, Lucy who is Irene Dunne is not at home. Rather, she was out with her music teacher, Armand Duvalle after she claimed that her car broke down unexpectedly. This gave Jerry a considerable suspicion with unbearable embarrassment especially in front of his friends who had witnessed the return of his wife with the suave European (Robin, 2014). On the other hand, Lucy learns that Jerry did not actually go to Florida as claimed, but rather he had an artificial tan with written fake letters. Since their mutual distrust was too much to bear, they called for a divorce. The divorce seemed agreed upon since they were waiting for 90 days for it to be final, but a dispute arises over the possession of their dog, Mr. Smith. During the divorce proceedings, Lucy is forced to move into her Aunt's apartment, Patsy where she becomes engaged to a neighbor, Leeson. However, this is not approved by Leeson's mother. On the other hand, Jerry decides to date a singer, Dixie Belle Lee.

The film is the best and the deepest of the comedies of remarriage and love. The couple starts the film when married and ends it married. Robin asserted that "sometimes romantic comedies use divorce to lead one or both of its protagonists to recognize how much they really belong together" (2014). As the divorced couples wait for 90 days, Lucy lounges in the apartment with a sparkling evening gown which it can tell that she misses Jerry despite everything. The awful truth is that they need one another and the profound faith of McCarey in Monogamy gradually directs them to that hilariously crucial discovery. When Lucy realizes that she still loves Jerry, she takes an initiative of breaking up all the engagement she had. However, before she does so, Armand appears at the apartment to discuss the singing concert of Lucy, but a knock of Jerry follows and Armand finds it prudent to hide in the bedroom. Much to their delight, Jerry wants to reconcile with Lucy but this is interrupted by Armand, Dan and Dan's mother. However, before the clock strikes midnight, they happily reconciled and eventually get remarried. In a subtle and natural way, this is a script that starts as a trifle and ends as something stunning and affirmative.

The film epitomizes on the use of doors which in reality can be viewed to be boundaries which can both reunite and separate. In the film, Lucy's aunt says that "Every time I open this door, someone walks in" (Atkinson, 2018). In the film, a door is of great importance as it dictates the relationships taking place in the play. For instance, the door separates two men but subtly connects Dunne and grant. This takes place when Grant playfully pokes Lucy so as to get her to laugh at the earnest love poem of Grant. This door is a clear definition of a romantic triangle and its sexual ground rules as the current husband of Grant is already inside and she is not yet divorced while Dunne tries to keep Bellamy the interloper from outside. The other door in Lucy's apartment is meant to unite rather than keeping the two men separate. Lucy walks Armand into an interior door that leads to the guest room so as he can hide when Jerry unexpectedly arrives to talk to her. Also, when Dan shows up, Jerry uses the same door to flee over Lucy's protest. These doors create an expansion of the cinematic space of both union and separation of all relationships taking place in the film.

Conclusion

The Awful Truth is a solid screwball farce that gets stronger as it picks up especially once Bellamy's drawling oilman is on his way out. The romantic comedy is a masterpiece especially in the final half-hour which entails the hilarious performance of Dunne who pretends to be Grant's drunken, striptease-performing sister. McCarey makes the film works through the way he finds it fascinating to visualize the stock circumstance of a love triangle which must resolve itself in the only way possible. Although Lucy is viewed as the one who is unfaithful, in reality, she is not, rather her husband Jerry is. She tries by all mean to convince her husband that she did not do anything wrong but contrary; her husband's lies are literally forgotten. Lucy uses a tongue twister to conclude this by saying that "Things are just the same as they always were, only you're the same as you were too, so I guess things will never be the same again" (Atkinson, 2018). This clearly shows the status quo of the society and the Hollywood morality that governs this story.

References

Atkinson, M. (2018, July 10). The Awful Truth. Sight & sound, 28(2), 42-45.

Baker, R. (2003, March 6). The awful truth. The New York Review of Books, 50.

Robin, N. H. (2014, January 4). The awful truth. American journal of medical genetics, 71(4), 375-377.