Down With Love Review
by Robin Clifford (robin AT reelingreviews DOT com)May 27th, 2003
"Down with Love"
Barbara Novak (Renee Zellweger) is a Down East girl from Maine who has come to the big city (circa 1962 NYC) to try to sell her new book, a diatribe against love and romance - but not against sex. To her surprise the book is not just a hit, it is a worldwide phenomenon! The success of her tome comes under the scrutiny of chauvinistic men's magazine, Know (read: Playboy clone), writer Catcher Block (Ewan McGregor) who has a scheme to turn Barbara around and get his expose in "Down with Love."
Last year Todd Haynes paid homage to 50's director Douglas Sirk, auteur of such melodramas as "Written on the Wind" and "All That Heaven Allows," with his marvelous film "Far From Heaven." In it, Haynes captures the mood and tone of Sirk's best works as he creates an original film that stands on its own, but still honors Sirk. Helmer Peyton Reed comes up with something that is more of a parody and sendoff and less homage to the Doris Day/Rock Hudson romantic farces of the 50's and 60's, in particular "Pillow Talk."
Confident, sophisticated Barbara comes to New York with her first book, Down with Love, and she takes the city, the country and the world by storm. Her oeuvre is an indictment against male domination and she advises women everywhere to forget about romance - eat chocolate and have uninvolved sex she tells her readers. The book, and its incredible impact on the macho world, comes under the inspection of Know magazine publisher Peter MacMannus (David Hyde Pierce), who puts his top reporter, Catcher, on the job.
The suave, debonair lady-killer resists taking the story and having meets with Barbara, thinking her just a country bumpkin. He misses one appointment after another, always while "entertaining" a succession of sexy stewardesses, until he has a chance encounter with the author at the dry cleaners. Seeing his error in judging the lady without seeing her and a way to get a hook on his assignment, Catcher puts on a southern accent and introduces himself as Zip Martin, a NASA astronaut who has been on a mission for two weeks and unaware who Barbara Novak is. His plan is to make her fall in love with Zip and expose her hypocrisy to the world in a Know exclusive (and restore male dominance to the world once again).
The romance begins and Zip's aw shucks, nice guy demeanor, without a shred of attempt to go get Barbara in bed, begins to hold sway over Novak's resolve to be down on love. This is a virtual remake of "Pillow Talk," with the split screen phone conversations, with all the double entendres (along with naughty action between screens to imply hot sex), and the Rock Hudson recreation, by McGregor, of the playboy wooing a recalcitrant lady and putting on a fake accent. Zellweger does the Doris Day impersonation well - she did her homework, it's obvious - and McGregor carries himself with the necessary elegance his caricature character requires.
Principle support cast is ably led, in a two-dimensional way, by Hyde Pierce as the awestruck boss and sidekick to Catcher and Sarah Paulson helps as Barbara's chain smoking publisher and new best friend Vikki Hiller. Tony Randall, who played the sidekick in the Oscar winning 1959 film, has a fun cameo as the Theodore Banner, the owner of the company publishing Barbara's book.
If the romantic farces of the 50's and 60's, like "Pillow Talk," were artificial renderings of life in the big city back then, then "Down with Love" is a quantum leap in artificiality. The costumes, by Daniel Orlandi, are also a caricature of the earlier film's Jean Louis stylish creations. Sets, by production designer Andrew Laws, are all glitter and flash, just like in the old films, but are, again, parody rather than loving recreation.
Stay through the credits for the song and dance number by McGregor and Zellweger. It is the best thing in the film and makes me wonder why someone hasn't signed up the former for a record contract, his pipes are that good. (Maybe he's waiting for his shot at "American Idol.") I recommend renting "Pillow Talk" and give "Down with Love" a C+.
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