Down With Love (2003) 6/10
In mod mod mod 1962, Barbara Novak (Renée Zellweger) writes a self-help book that advises women to give up love, demand equality in the workplace, and have sex “like a man; a la carte.??? Famous writer/ladies man Catcher Block (Ewan McGregor) determines to trick Novak into falling in love with him so that he can write an exposé.
Down With Love is a pretty movie, with bright colors and bold costumes, in exactly the way 1962 was pretty and bold. It is highly stylized; more Flint than Catch Me If You Can (the latter did a fine job of capturing the feel and look of the era without mockery). The stylization is most of the movie, permeating not just costumes and sets, but script and performance as well. It all seems to be an ambivalent exercise; part snark, part send-up, part homage. Yes, Zellweger is Doris Day, McGregor is Rock Hudson (he wishes!) and David Hyde Pierce is Tony Randall. In case we weren’t 100% sure about this, director Peyton Reed adds split-screen phone calls and casts Tony Randall in a small role.
The movie has far too much fun to make the mockery work, and the snark is too easy. Wow! They were sexist in the 1960s! Who knew?! It’s way too easy to make fun of stuff like that; way too easy to look back and say “We’re better now, because now we have sarcasm!???
Meanwhile, the rom-com conventions of such classics as Pillow Talk are walked through mechanically, without any real flair. Homage is fine, but it all feels like it’s been done before. Ho hum.
The exuberant performances deserve credit, but it’s just not enough.You might like this one just for the atmospherics; the mod dresses, the fun set design, but it’s an awkward combination of fluffy and snarky.
Excellent review (and not just because I felt pretty much the same about it). Down With Love is one of those movies where the whole is much less than the sum of its parts (which, as you say, include outstanding performances and art direction). I thought David Hyde Pierce, playing Tony Randall playing whomever, was the most enjoyable thing about the movie. Overall, kind of lacklustre. (And not just because I never saw the appeal of Rock Hudson/Doris Day movies in the first place.)
I just saw it on A&E this weekend. It was adorable but for me I loved the costumes and the settings. Did you notice the woven wood wals in his office?
Oh, I didn’t notice the walls. I loved her apartment, and those kitsch 1962 stewardess outfits with the little hats.
Tom, I adore Pillow Talk and the like, but this just didn’t come up to snuff. As far as David Hyde Pierce, I was intensely distracted by his funny walk.