Down With Love' gets a thumbs up
By Nicole Rodriguez
Nobody expected much to come from Peyton Reed's feature film debut "Bring It On," but nonetheless the director managed to produce a surprise hit out of what could have been a cheesy parody of high school cheerleaders. Reed managed to make a name for himself in the process. Likewise, Reed has succeeded in making an enjoyable product out of the insipid script that could have spelled disaster for his follow-up project "Down with Love."
Set in 1963, "Love" is a moderately enchanting romantic comedy that mimics the style of the classic Doris Day and Rock Hudson hits originally made in the era. The premise itself is rather simple: Barbara Novak ("Chicago" Oscar nominee Renee Zellweger), a small-town girl from the middle of nowhere, writes and publishes a hit book entitled "Down with Love" - a nonfiction work that encourages women to forget love and instead search for happiness in successful careers, chocolate, and the casual sex only men were formally able to enjoy.
Enter star reporter and notorious ladies man Catcher Block (Ewan McGregor), who takes it upon himself to write another one of his Pulitzer Prize winning exposes. And this time Barbara Novak is going to provide his coveted headlines.
Catcher decides to prove to the world that Barbara is not really a "Down with Love" girl at heart, and that in the end all any woman wants is to be a married wife in the suburbs.
And he, of course, is going to be the man who sweeps her off her feet on the cover of the highly successful men's magazine he works for.
The devilishly charming Catcher loses the British accent and adopts a "Forrest Gump" Southern twang in order to disguise himself as a dim-witted Southern NASA astronaut named Zip Martin. In a carefully contrived sequence, Catcher encounters and seduces Barbara by pretending to be everything contrary to what she describes men as in her book - that is, he becomes a man looking for love instead of sex.
However, once Catcher is forced into a relationship where he can't indulge in the pleasures of casual sex, he finds that he himself is vulnerable to the dangers of love as well, and that Barbara Novak herself might just be the right woman for him.
Stylishly dressed in the height of 1960s fashion and decor, Reed and his leading man transform "Down with Love" into an enjoyable, if somewhat cliched, ninety minute movie-going experience.
McGregor has no problem charming his audience members - a necessary feat to accomplish if we are ever going to understand how a stereotypical misogynist like Catcher can still convince his string of stewardess girlfriends that he is as refined and debonair as James Bond. He has all of the charm he oozed in "Moulin Rouge" times ten.
It's a pity, however, that he didn't have a co-star as charismatic as "Rouge's" Nicole Kidman to share the screen with this time around.
Despite her two Oscar nominations, I am still unable to understand how Zellweger seems to have maintained such a lasting career in the Hollywood industry, and her performance in "Down with Love" does nothing to clarify the confusion.
Zellweger's Barbara Novak has all the allure of a smokey, seductive cigarette. While it is easy to understand why she would fall for both Zip and Catcher's respective personalities, it seems unlikely that someone as vivacious as Catcher would give up his playboy ways for someone as bland and self-important as Zellweger makes Barbara.
It would have been delightful to see what could have come of this film had McGregor had the opportunity to act alongside someone as talented as Kidman or another actress of her caliber.
Zellweger's miscasting aside, Reed and McGregor (as well as a delightfully funny supporting cast including "Fraiser's" David Hyde Pierce) do manage to do for the romantic comedy genre what the "Austin Powers" series did for classic spy flicks. "Down With Love" is campy and cheesy, but - Zellweger's overblown monologues aside - classily executed and ultimately lots of fun.