The Awful Truth pits two anti-romantics against each other: Lucy and Jerry Warriner (Irene Dunne and Cary Grant), a husband and wife in the midst of a divorce. While each tries to find new love, the other discreetly stands in the way. The catch, of course, is that Lucy and Jerry always seem to be the most compatible couple in the room. Grant and Dunne run circles around the rest of the cast – as they’re meant to – sharing repartee and side jokes that no one else picks up on. Grant is at his comic best, while Dunne epitomizes what contemporary Hollywood has too little of: an intelligent comedienne. Director Leo McCarey (Duck Soup) keeps everything moving at a necessarily breakneck pace, so that The Awful Truth plays like the perfect sitcom. And I mean that as a compliment.
