Down With Love

Release Date: May 16, 2003
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Director: Peyton Reed
Screenwriter: Eve Ahlert, Dennis Drake
Starring: Renée Zellweger, Ewan McGregor, David Hyde Pierce, Rachel Dratch, Sarah Paulson, Tony Randall, Jeri Ryan, Dorie Barton, Melissa George, Will Jordan, Ivana Milicevic, John Storey
Genre: Comedy, Romance
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (for sexual humor and dialogue)
Official Website: Down-with-Love.com

Plot Summary: "Down with Love" is set in the early 1960s, and every frame pops with the super-saturated palette of '60s Technicolor. Process shots, stock shots, backlot-fake NYC street scenes, snazzy apartments, and elegant supper clubs are the backdrop for the characters, including Zellweger's best-selling advice author and McGregor's hotshot journalist/playboy.

Reviewed by Peter Veugelaers © 2003
- Better than a cheese royale: buy one while its hot

This is a homage to the daring (for the time) Rock Hudson and Doris Day sex comedies of the 1950s and 1960s. "Down with Love" captures that era in deliberately playful and animated tones when serious shifts in thinking about a women’s place in society were being contested.

This camp comedy is contrived, particularly the conclusion, and is unashamed to wallow in sexually charged double entendres and set itself in a world of 1960s reactionary feminist sexual politics, it passes all the same as lightweight bubbly entertainment.

Barbara Novak (Zellweger) writes a book called Down with Love which creates a stir among women during the early 1960s. Novak’s book about masculinising the female sex drive and so achieve equality with men becomes a best seller only because it gets publicity on the Ed Suvillan show.

Before she became famous, Novak was excited by the prospect of being interviewed by Catcher Block (McGregor), a womanising journalist, but he fails to turn up to the interview. When Novak becomes an overnight success Catcher Block pricks up his ears requesting an interview but is politely refused by Novak. Block finds a way to bring her down by pretending to be fictitious astronaut Zip Martin and tries to get her to fall in love with him. A write-up about how the ‘down with love’ Novak falls in love will be enough to tumble her empire built on the notion of female equality.

This is about the battle of the sexes, none so obviously conveyed through the clever use of set decoration: in some scenes McGregor’s Catcher Block is surrounded by blue while Barbara Novak is evoked by contrasting pink, a statement about the competing boy-girl politics between them both.

The contrasting colours are striking and effective which create a mood that helps in understanding the strong divide between the two central characters. The look of the film is of retro up market and highly priced New York City with synthetic and artificial colour-by-number shades of white, blue, pink and yellow. It could seem a tad overwhelming on the eye, but is nicely composed against other modern day film’s that lack this ones creative design sense coupled with its off-beat humour.

A parallel relationship played by David Hyde Pierce and Sarah Paulson is appealing, sometimes humorous, and well-acted, nicely supporting and complimenting McGregor and Zellweger.

"Down With Love" is not really feminist at all despite the obvious associations and undertones. It has none of the feminist angst, anger, or assertiveness; maybe the perceived feminist links is all in the marketing. It is more a sophisticated and quirky What Women Want, yet it answers that question more clearly and intelligently than what that Mel Gibson-Helen Hunt vehicle attempted to do. And it is fun to watch the very capable Zellweger and McGregor battle it out to the predictable conclusion.

"Down With Love" also confirms that in 2003 the chemistry between men and women has not been extinguished because of feminist alliances, but that the possibilities for romance and love still exist. It’s hardly radical, but foreshadows hope for those of us who still believe that positive male-female relationships haven’t been ravaged by the changes of time.