The Awful Truth

I thought this was a very funny and clever film. It begins by Jerry lying to his wife Lucy about taking a trip to Florida. He jokes with his friend that what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. Then in the very next scene his wife was nowhere to be found. She later was discovered with her singing instructor whose car apparently broke down. Jerry gets very suspicious of their story and gets made at her for not telling him the truth. He questions whether or not she was unfaithful to him when he just lied to her about going to Florida. She soon finds out that he had lied about his whereabouts after she finds an orange with a printed label “Fresh from California” in her basket of presents. Jerry seems to contradict himself when he tried to explain where he was. This eventually leads to their divorce, but it also raises the question of marriage itself. Throughout the film, there were a lot of references to what a marriage needs to be successful. Marriage was said to be built on faith and being truthful to your partner. Each character had their suspicions about their spouses. Another aspect of the movie I thought was interesting was the character of the dog, Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith seemed to metaphorically represent a child between Lucy and Jerry. He seemed to be the one thing they had in common and loved. I thought the court scene where they both fought for custody of the dog was very funny. It seemed as though Lucy won the rights to the dog because of her sneaky trick, in which she showed the dog his favorite toy and he came running to her. To me this set up the entire film because after that stunt, I felt that Jerry was trying to get back at her. I also saw the dog playing another important role in the movie. The part when Lucy taught him how to play hide-n-go seek stood out to me. She taught him that game, which in the end hurt Lucy because instead of the dog finding the treat, he found Armani’s hat. This eventually led to Jerry finding out that Lucy was with another guy. To me this also symbolized Jerry teaching Lucy dating ticks. Jerry first played tricks with Lucy during her relationship with Daniel. This eventually led to them breaking up, but like the dog, Lucy learned how to trick Jerry and screw up his relationship with Barbra Vance. The person that taught the tricks (Lucy, then Jerry) eventually got the tricks played on them.