Fun if forgettable retro comedy
Added 10/28/2009
The Bottom Line:
Down with Love was assembled with great care and the two leads (particularly McGregor) are very good in their roles, but the film suffers the main problem endemic to almost all screwball comedies--the characters are all so ridiculous that the audience doesn't give a hoot about what happens to them--and so I can't really recommend it; it's a fun film, but it's very lightweight and an agonizingly long speech by Zellweger in the third act that slows the film down to a crawl doesn't much help matters.
2.5/4
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Pillow Talking Lover, Please Come Back and Move Over, Darling....
Added 8/25/2009
This film is a perfect replication of the Doris Day/Rock Hudson films of the early sixties, right down to the designer outfits, high-strung friends and cameos from a zillion TV actors. Renee Zellwegger is a charmer of the first water....a girl I will officially dub right here and now as: "The Smirk". Her cute ways, (and those lawd-awmighty gams!) have you fascinated with her through the entire film. Director Peyton Reed, (who looks NOTHING like I expected him to look,) must have seen "Pillow Talk" and "Lover Come Back" a thousand times, because he has the feel and timing of those two movies, (basically the same film,) down to a science! Renee's Barbara Novak, a feminist author new to the big city, hates the very idea of a Catcher Block, a classic rom-com movie batchelor who makes Hugh Hefner look like he uses saltpeter, or so we're led to believe. Catcher is a well-known SWM hedonistic journalist of the early sixties for a Playboy/Esquire-type magazine called "Know". Between the end of the film and her initial entry into the movie, Babsy actually MEETS Catcher, disguised as someone else, and, as a matter of fact, falls for him rather heavily. At the last minute, his cover is blown and....
Well, the art direction is first-rate here, as someone managed to duplicate the look and feel of early sixties modern in every set in the flick! Sarah Paulson and David Hyde-Pierce make a VERY hard-to-believe couple in the film, but Paulson is as cute as ever. There is one split-screen scene here that is HILARIOUS and very naughty, between Zellwegger and McGregor and an O. Henry twist at the end that will have your jaw dropping!
I highly recommend this one, as really good nostalgically perfect comedies don't come along too often!
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Art Direction Seared My Eyeballs
Added 7/31/2009
This is certainly an earnest homage to Late Fifties-Early Sixties battle of the sexes flicks particularly the Rock and Doris romps. Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor make for attractive leads and David Hyde-Pierce is simply stupendous in the Tony Randall part(Randall does a cameo here). There's a certain wit to the script and some clever double entendres present that wouldn't have been allowed in the earlier films. I can't give the flick the pass because the art direction-costume design is the height of garishness. Now I wasn't born until '63 but I've seen enough films from the era to state that the film's vomit inducing look is an act of self-indulgence. Maybe somebody should have seen an episode of "Madmen" to see how it's done right.
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DOWN WITH LOVE...DOWN RIGHT WONDERFUL!
Added 6/13/2009
I rented this film, when I should have bought it. This is a delight. Renee Z is outstanding in this movie as is (surprisingly) Ewan McGregor. They both pull off this innuendo rich, tongue in cheek, vibrant comedy. It is a play on the 60's romantic comedies of switched identities, and falling in love under false pretenses.
It is Doris Day and Rock Hudson in hyperbole! It captures every nuance of every DD and RH film plot. It makes fun of the films but in a respectful way, not putting them down but almost as a comedic homage to the characters. The sets are outrageously stunning as are the costumes. Doris Day could wear bold and beautiful outfits and no one thought twice about her turbans or cape-like coats, and this film captures that stylistic flair. And her all white outfit from Pillow Talk makes a return in this film.
I wasn't sure about Ewan McGregor in this role, but boy was he more than great. The choreography and presentation was spot on and contributed to the pace of the film.
Anyone could enjoy this movie, but Doris Day/Rock Hudson fanatics will catch every subtle reference and characteristic that has been personified in Down with Love. Refreshing and engaging, it is a light hearted film but not at all simplistic in its presentation or message.
This is definitely a keeper!
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Perfect Movie Just Like it's Mom Sex and the Single Girl
Added 1/22/2009
This is a perfect concoction. Many speak of this movie as an homage to the Doris Day movies which it definitely worships and adores, but in actuality this film is closer in all ways to it's direct predecessor, a delightful 1964 movie called Sex and the Single Girl, starring Natalie Wood and Tony Curtis. A little remembered cinematic gem. The plot of DWL mirrors SATSG, right down to the female lead having penned a how-to manual for the modern (1964) single woman, pre-women's lib, instructing women that they can have a modern sexual relationship without love just like the guys do! Similarities are so close that the movie's are both named after these best-sellers, along with the hero-rake disguising himself as an innocent nebbish whilst really seeking to write an expose denouncing Natalie-Renee as just another girl who really just wants love and marriage. The similarities continue with the secondary couple getting madly and comedically entangled in these deceptions, and even the boardrooms and board members antics mirror one another in the 2 movies. DWL is really just a more visually colorful remake of that older movie, but it is beautiful and funny and the leads are perfect and it works so beautifully. On it's own. But it is definitely a remade Sex and the Single Girl. For fun, I highly recommend the older movie along with this one. If only to see 2 legendary and beautiful actors at work, and if only to observe that they just do not make movie stars like the tragically luminous Natalie Wood and the magnetic Mr. Curtis anymore. Ewan and Renee are as close as we can get, and they are adorable and effervescent, with Ewan in particular shining in his comedic talents. DWL is beautiful, colorful, the set design and costume design are Oscar-worthy, and this DWL is a treasure for those of us who love these types of movies. When Ewan is in character as Zip Martin, he absolutely makes the screen come alive. DWL is priceless, as is it's parent.
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Fun if forgettable retro comedy
Added 10/28/2009
The Bottom Line:
Down with Love was assembled with great care and the two leads (particularly McGregor) are very good in their roles, but the film suffers the main problem endemic to almost all screwball comedies--the characters are all so ridiculous that the audience doesn't give a hoot about what happens to them--and so I can't really recommend it; it's a fun film, but it's very lightweight and an agonizingly long speech by Zellweger in the third act that slows the film down to a crawl doesn't much help matters.
2.5/4
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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Pillow Talking Lover, Please Come Back and Move Over, Darling....
Added 8/25/2009
This film is a perfect replication of the Doris Day/Rock Hudson films of the early sixties, right down to the designer outfits, high-strung friends and cameos from a zillion TV actors. Renee Zellwegger is a charmer of the first water....a girl I will officially dub right here and now as: "The Smirk". Her cute ways, (and those lawd-awmighty gams!) have you fascinated with her through the entire film. Director Peyton Reed, (who looks NOTHING like I expected him to look,) must have seen "Pillow Talk" and "Lover Come Back" a thousand times, because he has the feel and timing of those two movies, (basically the same film,) down to a science! Renee's Barbara Novak, a feminist author new to the big city, hates the very idea of a Catcher Block, a classic rom-com movie batchelor who makes Hugh Hefner look like he uses saltpeter, or so we're led to believe. Catcher is a well-known SWM hedonistic journalist of the early sixties for a Playboy/Esquire-type magazine called "Know". Between the end of the film and her initial entry into the movie, Babsy actually MEETS Catcher, disguised as someone else, and, as a matter of fact, falls for him rather heavily. At the last minute, his cover is blown and....
Well, the art direction is first-rate here, as someone managed to duplicate the look and feel of early sixties modern in every set in the flick! Sarah Paulson and David Hyde-Pierce make a VERY hard-to-believe couple in the film, but Paulson is as cute as ever. There is one split-screen scene here that is HILARIOUS and very naughty, between Zellwegger and McGregor and an O. Henry twist at the end that will have your jaw dropping!
I highly recommend this one, as really good nostalgically perfect comedies don't come along too often!
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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Art Direction Seared My Eyeballs
Added 7/31/2009
This is certainly an earnest homage to Late Fifties-Early Sixties battle of the sexes flicks particularly the Rock and Doris romps. Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor make for attractive leads and David Hyde-Pierce is simply stupendous in the Tony Randall part(Randall does a cameo here). There's a certain wit to the script and some clever double entendres present that wouldn't have been allowed in the earlier films. I can't give the flick the pass because the art direction-costume design is the height of garishness. Now I wasn't born until '63 but I've seen enough films from the era to state that the film's vomit inducing look is an act of self-indulgence. Maybe somebody should have seen an episode of "Madmen" to see how it's done right.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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