Summer Cinema: ‘Down With Love’
When you stop and think about it, the old Doris Day movies of the sixties were pretty racy for their time. These were films were a mixture of comedy and sex that kept their audience laughing and gasping at the same time. Women everywhere swooned over Rock Hudson, and copied Day’s hairstyles and mannerisms. If Hollywood were to make a Doris Day movie today, it would be just like the new romantic comedy “Down With Love.” But although close to a score, “Love” unfortunately misses the mark.
“Love” is a smart, sexy and adorable movie that fails to live up to the vision it sets out for itself. The Day of the film is Barbara Novak, (Renee Zellweger) whose new book Down With Love is causing women everywhere to seek fulfilling careers along with sex “al a carte” just like a man. Her Hudson is journalist Catcher “Catch” Block (Ewan McGregor), ladies’ man/man’s man/man about town, who is determined to take her down. The catch? While trying to seduce Novak and show her to be a fraud, Block ends up falling head over heels in love with her.
This really is a unique movie. The filmmakers said they wanted to make a movie that paid homage to the old Doris Day/Rock Huson sex romps of the sixties. As the film opens with its bold declaration “filmed in Cinemascope” you you’re in for a retro experience. Between cut screen scenes (some of them slightly inappropriate in their sexual humor) to choreographed costume dropping and obviously fake backdrops, “Love” delights in poking fun in the genre that made Day famous while poking fun at itself and the obvious frivolity it is.
The main problem with the film is that while it attempt to recreate the magic of those films from the early sixties it falls far short of the mark. Sure Zellweger is cute and sassy, and McGregor is laughable in his naïve, masculine surety, but unlike movies like “Glass Bottom Boat” and “Pillow Talk” the film takes more pains in poking fun then being. Let me explain what I mean. Everything in “Love” is a gag from the sets to the split screens to the dialogue. There is no attempt made at a personality of its own. The entire movie is a contrived illusion emulating the genre it is attempting to spoof.
What we are left with a cute but empty bit of fluff. But for all its faults, “Love” is a very entertaining movie, and a clever idea. Too bad it didn’t work out better than it did. Instead of a glorious run of retro nostalgia it will probably be relegated to the corners of the corner video store collecting dust.
Grade: C+