While Cyrano believes his nose will ensure he can never find love, Abby believes that her physical appearance is so plain, she is destined to only be loved by her cat. In 1996 the premise of the story is a little hard to swallow, of course. Abby might consider herself short, plain and horror of all horrors - a brunette, but so what?
Anyway, with the lack of credibility of the entire plot established, we can laugh along as Abby finds herself attracted to a delightfully clumsy pommy photographer. Said beau is attracted to her great radio personality (she's a vet, and tells the listening public, you guessed it the truth about cats and dogs).
Of course, since this is the movies, Abby believes that her body cannot match her voice's image. Enter Uma Thurman as Noel, tall, blond and I guess you'd say beautiful. Since she gets top billing for this movie, she must also be well paid.
The rest of the plot unfolds exactly as you would expect it to. This is not the movie that will feed your brain great intellectual stimulation. Nor will it hydrate your tear ducts - as Gerard Depardieu's Cyrano did. What this is, however, is a pleasant way to spend a summer evening, and when its 90 degrees outside, its not such a bad way to cool off!
Janeane Garofalo's Abby holds your attention, since you think that she just might say something important. But, no, all we really see here is a collection of stereotypes. Plain Jane Abby makes a number of gestures that the rest of us plain Janes can hold onto and even feel smug about. Blonds might be reported to have more fun, but at least brunettes know that Simone de Beauvoir is the pioneering feminist whose writings help to ensure that movies like this one are little more than nonsense.
Abby fighting off Noel's neanderthal boyfriend with nothing but her wit and a violin bow is certainly worth a chuckle in a watered down Thelma and Louise way. And if Thurman's Noel is just a little too dumb for this feminists liking, what do you expect? This isn't Shakespeare.
When the story doesn't hold your attention, little details start to bother you. The editing, for example, is about as clumsy as Abby pretends to be. In the bar scene, for example, Abby spills salsa on her shirt. The salsa appears and disappears on the shirt throughout the scene, and the stain is as believable as everything else about this movie.
Oh, did I mention this has the greatest dog since Turner and Hooch? Michael Lehmann certainly knew how to direct that dog!