Down with Love - Zum Teufel mit der Liebe!

Well, 'Down With Love' turned out to be a unexpectedly pleasant surprise. Love many of the late 50s and 60s sex romantic comedies, 'Pillow Talk' being a primary example, and can't get enough of those with Doris Day and Rock Hudson which this film clearly was paying homage to. There was the worry though as to whether 'Down With Love' would be just another heavily predictable film with forced comedy moments, no romantic chemistry and no charm with talented casts wasted.

Luckily, 'Down With Love' on the most part was not one of those films. It is a satire and celebration of the sex romantic comedies from the late 50s and in particular the 60s, being set in 1962, and mostly does a really good job, capturing the fun, kitsch, charm, froth and affectionate nostalgia of the period and the films with incredibly impressive results. Is it as good as the films it's satirising and celebrating? No. Are the two leads and their chemistry on the same level as Day and Hudson or even Day and James Garner? Not in a million years, but this is a tall order with not many actors and actresses today having the same amount of appeal and that special one of a kind chemistry that those stars had.

'Down With Love' is not perfect. It is easy to dismiss the story as being slight and predictable, and it is. One does have to bear in mind though that the story was not exactly the strong suit in the sex romantic comedies of the late 50s and 60s, it was the production values, the stars, the supporting cast, the writing (on the most part) and the chemistry between the stars that elevated those films to a greater level.

Mostly the script is fine, but it is not without its clunkers. Especially that homosexual accusation, that was cringe-worthy, completely out of place and if it was made in either of the decades that are being satirised and celebrated it would have been anachronistic and would have been anachronistic in its 1962 setting. A few of the more twisty moments were too obvious and didn't serve much point and it occasionally affected the pacing. It was nice to see Tony Randall again, but he really deserved much better than a pointless cameo that gave him nothing to do, he might as well have not been in the film at all.

However, 'Down With Love' looks great and replicates the look of the late 50s and 60s perfectly, the glorious Technicolor, the super stylish photography, the colourful sets, the kitschy décor, sumptuous costuming, the CinemaScope logo. The split screen was clever in one scene. There are artificial painted backdrops and cheap back projection, but this was perfect and appropriate considering what the film is doing. The soundtrack is infectious and affectionate and the direction is controlled and super slick.

Apart from the odd clunker, the script is clever and witty while also being endearingly frothy. The characters lack depth but are not too shallow or annoying thanks to the charm of the cast. The story isn't perfect, but is mainly fun, charming and captures the spirit of the period and films it's satirising and celebrating perfectly and with clear affection.

Renee Zellwegger gives a sprightly and likable lead performance and is well matched by a charming, understated and carefree Ewan McGregor in the other lead role. Their chemistry is nicely done, to me it was there but subtle. It may not have been Day and Hudson but that is incredibly daunting for anybody since to replicate. David Hyde Pierce steals the film, looking like he is having the most fun, he certainly has the most energy. Sarah Poulson is amusingly wise-cracking and charming, if occasionally a little too tongue-in-cheek.

Overall, an unexpected pleasant surprise if not perfect. 7/10 Bethany Cox

I saw this more as an experiment, a chance to pay homage to a time and place in movie-making. I was also reminded of "Breakfast at Tiffanys" a tad in its glamorization of that Jackie Kennedy/Audrey Hepburn period of high ladies fashion. It was sort of a 50's lag, a last vestige of the classy old styles before the hip/hippie modern era would sweep them away forever. Call it the end of elegance, if you will.

On the other hand, it was the end of an era for the more innocent screwball comedies/romances as well. Movies changed just as abruptly, and got just as down to earth in its realism as the fashions. So, we are seeing here a double homage, to the fashions, and the more lighthearted tenor of movies, in the 50's/early 60's.

The movie did well in the plot/story/jokes department. It was a tightrope, because if they got TOO risqué or hip, it would take away from the tenor and point of the whole retro/throwback thing. In that case, it inevitably would come across in some ways as a retread and stock, but that was the price paid for doing this. There simply was not much room to work with in any sense per plot development, and tongue-in-cheek can only go so far without betraying homage to the old school of doing things. With the aforementioned built-in restrictions, I think that Payton Reed did a pretty darn good job here! Well worth seeing, and a must-see for those who love retro fashions and movies.

DOWN WITH LOVE, director Peyton Reed's homage/spoof of the Doris Day/Rock Hudson sex comedies of the early 60s, is a delightful bit of fluff in a movie season filled with inferior sequels and overwrought epics. Dazzling to watch, with Givenchy-inspired costumes (if Daniel Orlandi does not receive an Oscar for his work, his peers should turn in their Designer cards), wonderfully over-the-top sets (EVERYBODY in those 60s films lived in apartments you could land airplanes in), and a 'More 1963 New York than 1963 New York' look (created on the studio back lot, with ample support from CGI), the film would deserve a viewing even if the cast never uttered a line of dialog!

Fortunately, the script, by Eve Ahlert and Dennis Drake, is wickedly funny, full of the politically incorrect double entendres that were as close as Hollywood could get to actual 'naughtiness', 30 years ago (and, yes, there are more than a few present that WOULD have been censored, even then). The story, of a woman who writes a best-selling 'self-help' book eschewing the necessity of men for any more than 'casual sex', and the 'Hugh Hefner'-like writer who turns his prodigious charms to work, in the guise of a naive astronaut, to win her love, and thus discredit her theories, would have fit Doris Day and Rock Hudson to a 'T'. While Renée Zellweger and Ewan McGregor lack their role models' charisma, they have a pleasant chemistry together, and the 'split-screen' phone call scenes between the pair are even racier than the Day/Hudson 60s versions.

If the leads seem a bit bland, the supporting cast more than makes up for any shortcomings. In a role that SHOULD garner a 'Supporting Actor' Oscar nomination, David Hyde Pierce takes on the part assumed by Tony Randall or Gig Young in those 60s farces, that of the put-upon, neurotic, sometimes prissy friend of the hero. He is superb, even SOUNDING like Tony Randall, and steals every scene he's in. His 'opposite number', friend of the heroine Sarah Paulson, while not quite at Pierce's level, is still quite funny as a chain-smoking career woman who would chuck it all for the right man. And, in a FABULOUS piece of casting, the MAN himself, Tony Randall, appears as the book publisher whose bestseller is RUINING his love life. At 83, the man can still toss off a funny line...

With a very inventive 'twist-within-a-twist' climax, and Marc Shaiman's evocative score punctuating the proceedings, DOWN WITH LOVE is a delight!

I'm surprised to read so many user comments which indicate that Down With Love received some critical acclaim - I recall a very different response, where critics seemed hugely and almost unanimously underwhelmed (maybe this was a UK response?) and consequently, I wasn't expecting too much. This only enhanced my enjoyment - what an underrated gem this movie is!!

I rarely like Zellwegger, but here she was pertly perfect, and McGregor was simply fabulous - dashing, charismatic, loathsome, even vulnerable, especially when he occasionally slips from his duplicitous fake self (when he notices a lash on her cheek, for example), and always delivers his lines with exquisite (and surprising) comic timing. The support cast were also excellent, especially Hyde Pierce, although he was not a 100 miles from his decade-long stint as Niles Crane.

The set, costumes, production design and cinematography were also outstanding in this movie, evoking the brashly-coloured, kitsch, fluffy-light ambiance which pervades the early 1960s New York screwball romance movie genre, but the snippy script and slick direction removed this pastiche away from its potential as mere enchanting, screwball fable to a witty, post-feminist send-up of this Hudson/Day romcom genre - and indeed, the battle of the sexes. To its credit, Down With Love doesn't collapse completely into mawkish sentimentality with Novak (Zellwegger) suddenly capitulating into the cult of domesticity, tamed by her man, which is often the fate of modern post-feminist heroines - instead, the couple compromise, and we can be sure that she won't be confined to the suburban purgatory she comes to dread.

In all, a fun, fab and brilliantly executed movie, which has been clearly (re)created with due love for the genre it so skillfully parodies, yet in the light of postmodern sensibilities by adding a much-needed post-feminist twist.

This parody of the 60s movies has zero subtlety, but is amusing and full of references. It is somewhat analytic, has some nice jokes and a lot of in-jokes, but is concerned more with commenting and it is not terribly sophisticated. Still, worth a watch, especially if you know the work Rock Hudson and his magnum opus of trivial love. Extra credit for being prescient about the absurdities of the upcoming age of over the top woke hys teria.