DOWN WITH LOVE is a sweet little muddle buoyed along by its effervescence and its unflagging cheer. Its hard to dislike, no matter how much you want to, no matter how much you should.
Like last years FAR FROM HEAVEN, though not in the same league, this is an homage to an earlier style of filmmaking, reproducing it faithfully but without the restrictions of the censorship codes of the time. In this case, its the brightly chipper romantic comedies of the early 60s. The ones where everyone wears really nice clothes and says moderately witty things while delicately skirting the raison detre of the piece, which is to say, sex. Back in 1962, when this film is set, it was still a racy topic and while screenwriters Eve Ahlert and Dennis Drake have done their darndest to take the tame double-entendres of that simpler time and spice them up in ways that would have shocked audiences then, they fall desperately flat for millennial audiences. A split screen of our leads talking on the phone that is cut to suggest the carnality of their innocent conversation as they bend, stretch and lie on their respective floors, is not only badly edited, its neither funny nor sexy.
The plot takes its cue from all those Doris Day — Rock Hudson flicks. Thus we have Renee Zellweger, fresh-scrubbed and looking like a puff pastry, as Barbara Novak, the author of a book that preaches equality of the sexes in the boardrooms and bedrooms. Love, so our author opines, is out, sex is in and let the games begin. Naturally, she tangles with Ewan McGregror as Catcher Block the brash man-about-town who specializes in exposes for Know magazine, things like NASA employing ex-Nazis. He stands Barbara up three times instead of doing a cover story on her and from there its a Technicolor blur of mistaken identities, switched apartments, and very big hair. McGregor and Zellweger never quite make sparks fly romantically; but each has perfected the art of mid-twentieth century Hollywood studio approved acting, which is to say, doing nothing so intense as to make the make-up melt or muss the lacquered hair. He leads with his shoulder and his jaw while wearing impeccable vintage-style suits. She strikes poses as she delivers her lines and wiggles her tushy while walking away. Actually, in the historically accurate spike heels sported by all the women in this film, shoes that make those Manolos look like Dr. Scholls, there really is no other way to walk. The proceedings finally pick up some steam at the end, when Barbara delivers a speech that is a perfect send-up of the genre, snagging the nuances of the silliness with the mock seriousness it requires. But by then its too late.
The best and only really funny character is David Hyde Pierce as Peter, Catchers best friend and his biggest fan. Peter is in love with Barbaras editor, but cant make it past his 20 diagnosed neuroses to make a move on her even with Catchers coaching. Pierce lights up the screen every time he appears and, hands down, no one does hopeless longing better, tranforming himself in the process into a veritable limp dishrag of desire.
DOWN WITH LOVE aspires to be a romp of a comedy. Ultimately, its too self-conscious of its models and its art direction from the space-age set design to the fashions that dont so much clothe as engulf, to loosen up enough to have fun.
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