"Down With Love" is a tribute to the Rock Hudson and Doris Day comedies of the early '60s. The movie begins with a series of colorful cartoons and has a wonderfully retro feel throughout. Set in 1962, the fanciful costumes, stage sets and music work seamlessly to provide delightful eye and ear candy for an hour and a half.
Unfortunately, the acting ruins the movie. Cast in the lead role of Barbara Novak, Rene Zellweger is a Twiggy-esque version of Bridget Jones with a hidden vengeance. Her romantic interest, Catcher Block, is played by Ewan McGregor. The epitome of the decade's playboy stereotype, Block is self-propelled into a cat-and-mouse game with the ultra-feminist Novak.
Simultaneously, Block's boss Peter MacMannus (David Hyde Pierce) is engaged in pursuit of Novak's editor, Vikki Hiller (Sarah Paulson). Pierce is highly typecast as the neurotic and insecure MacMannus.
The plot centers around Novak's book, "Down With Love." Our heroine is a feminist touting the joys of sex without love, encouraging women to "enjoy it like a man does" because "love is a distraction" in the workplace. Forsake love for equality amongst men. Of course, the evil Block sets out to expose her true self to the world. Silliness ensues, with an inundation of sexual innuendo.
Zellweger overacts, while Pierce seems flat. His character, Mac-Mannus, has no depth, adding little to the movie. McGregor is also a disappointment, except, perhaps, to the girl sitting across the aisle from me who audibly sighed at the sight of his naked and hairy torso.
Block's character would have been better suited for a romantic-comedy veteran such as Hugh Grant. Young and wet behind the ears, McGregor doesn't satisfy as the conniving lead. With the exception of Paulson, the lead roles were ill-cast with actors who didn't seem to know the line between acting and exaggerating.
There is a plot twist before the predictable happy Hollywood ending. Overly verbose in its explanation, the twist is not developed past the scene in which it occurs, leaving audiences unfulfilled.
The ending is also too neat. The movie spends over an hour setting the scene, gives Novak several minutes for a monologue during the twist sequence and finally devotes a mere 15 minutes to a complete, simple and unsurprising resolution. Utterly unacceptable. As with that other three-word, visually stunning movie that ended with "Love" (and began with "Punch-Drunk"), "Down With Love" is not a winner.
The Sunday afternoon showing I attended had an audience of at most 20 people, mostly elderly couples seeking a bit of nostalgia. College students, though, are unlikely to remember Rock Hudson or Doris Day -- especially not through a tribute like this one.
