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The
entertaining qualities of romantic comedies in the sixties were that they were
pushing the envelope on sex and humor, so a 1960’s style comedy in 2003 is
just silly. Yes, you can find some humor in it, but come on, that type of sexual
humor? Not only has that envelope been pushed, but it has been sealed, delivered
and answered in the last 40 years. Down With Love might seem whimsical and sugar
sweet, but Renee Zellweger can’t go from wanton sex goddess in Bridget
Jones’s Diary and murdering adulterous in Chicago
to a Doris Day wannabe Barbara Novak and not leave a sour taste in our mouths.
What was so sweet about Doris Day and her contemporaries was that they were
convincing as the innocent and pure, even while acting like sex kittens. So this
parody of sorts of the 1959 Pillow
Talk, starring Doris Day and Rock Hudsen just makes you wonder why they
couldn’t use the same script, but use the present date instead of trying so
hard to recreate 1963, the feminist movement or the sexual revolution. Down
With Love begins with budding author Novak hitting the big city, New York from
the farm in Maine, to launch her women’s self help book on how to look at love
and sex like a man and get ahead in the world through this mentality. Assisting
her in this endeavor is her editor Vikki Hiller (Sarah Paulson, What
Women Want). Banner books will publish her, but will not promote this book
that enables women. So these women use their wiles to turn this book into a
household name. Then playboy expose journalist Catcher Block (Ewan McGregor, Star
Wars: Episode II) develops a plan to prove her book false and publicly
destroy her after she publicly slams him on the Ed Sullivan show. Assisting
Catcher in this is his editor to Know Magazine, Peter MacMannus (David Hyde
Pierece, Treasure Planet). Just
like in 60’s films, the camera does all the sex work and the actors almost
never even touch each other. Although this film is wrapped up in a nice neat
little package, all too conveniently, it did offer a twist I was not suspecting.
This twist also answered some nagging questions I did have to the intelligence
of these characters regardless of the decade. And what would a 60s film be
without Tony Randall who plays Theodore Banner, the head of Banner Publishing
and misogynist. Peyton Reed directed Down With Love with the same directorial
style of forty years ago. For some this might be a trip down memory lane, for
others it is like watching the Classic Movie Channel only we had to divvy up
eight bucks for it. Others appearing in Down With Love were John Aylward, Doris
Barton, Lynn Collins, Rachel Dratch, Michael Ensign, Norman Fessler, Melissa
George, Basil Hoffman, Will Jordan, Laura Kightlinger, Warren Munson, Chris
Parnell and Jeri Ryan. Although there were a few laughs, this film just didn’t
stand up to 40 years of film and was a let down. I gave Down With Love a four on
the About-Movies.com scale.
Last updated: Thursday, March 20, 2008 02:49:28 AM Click Here to get back into frames.
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