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Whilst The Ugly Truth was pretty wretched, I found myself conflicted in my attitude towards Butler in the film. Sure, his character was repugnant, far more so than the characters he played in the other films I had taken to task in the past, and the film around him was similarly vile – his relationship advisor is basically the character that Tom Cruise plays in Magnolia, except The Ugly Truth doesn’t consider its character to be a horrible creep – but I couldn’t disengage myself from Butler’s performance in the way that I have before.

This reason for this is that the week before watching The Ugly Truth, I went to see Ralph Fiennes’ directorial debut, Coriolanus, which is a bold film that somehow manages to turn one of Shakespeare’s most complicated and difficult plays into a thrilling, engaging piece of entertainment. It also stars Gerard Butler as Aufidius, the mortal enemy/begrudging ally of the prideful and brutal warrior Coriolanus and - despite everything that the rest of his career would suggest - Butler is absolutely fantastic in the role. It takes real skill to do Shakespeare well, and he so completely nails the character, not to mention holds his own against Fiennes at his most ferocious, that I came away with a completely different impression of Butler as an actor. I no longer viewed him as a meathead who never brings anything to his roles, but as a genuinely talented performer, albeit one who needs the right material to bring that talent to the fore.

This created an oddly paradoxical situation for me whilst watching The Ugly Truth. I felt both more warmly towards Butler because I had seen him do such great work elsewhere, and completely disdainful of him for exactly the same reason. Before, I would have dismissed it as yet another film in which Gerard Butler is terrible, since that’s the base level of quality I had come to expect from him. Coriolanus shattered the curve: I now knew that he could be great if he tried, he’s just very, very lazy.

Now, I’m not saying that The Ugly Truth would have been a better film if Butler had delivered all his lines in Iambic Pentameter, but I struggle to believe that it could have been any worse.

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