Down with Love

Weird- I couldn't post to blogger.com from home! I can't even get to the site... so here is a reveiw I did like a week ago.

This weekend I rented the movie Down with Love. I have always wondered about this movie- the cover has caught my eye and the upcoming movie The Break Up was directed by the same director, Peyton Reed. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this film. This movie pays homage to the romantic comedies filmed by Doris Day and Rock Hudson in the 1960’s.

The movie begins when Barbara Novak(Zellweger) has just written her first book, “Down with Love”, which is a book essentially coaching the modern women of the 60’s into being independent, single women who can do all that men can do. Barbara’s editor gets her the hookup with the most prestigious men’s magazine out there, Know. Catcher Block (McGregor) is a famous writer who is going to send this book to new heights by writing a cover story on Barbara and her book. However, after four meetings Novak is fed up with his silly excuses and tells him off. Well, after an appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show Barbara’s novel becomes extraordinarily popular and men everywhere are giving her the cold shoulder because she’s changing women all over. She publicly acknowledges Catcher as being one of the worst men out there. He decides to write one of his famous exposés on her book. He poses as an astronaut who hasn’t been on earth for the past few months (therefore he has missed the entire controversy over Novak and how she has changed women). By doing this, he is able to woo her and basically “break” her and prove that she’ll still fall for love. There’s a little twist at the end. Nothing special, but I guess they needed a little more to the plot. There is one scene were Zellweger has a very long monologue, and apparently this took six days of filming to get it perfect.

Many aspects contributed to the movie’s seemingly retro appeal. The acting, the music and the cinematography was extremely stylized and precise. Of course, there were modern twists and ounces of innuendo added in to make sure the movie appealed to today’s audience. McGregor did an incredible job portraying a smooth and cunning ladies’ man of the 60’s, and Zellweger did an adorable job as a prissy, independent and endearing lady. My favorite characteristic of this movie was the sets. There were many colorful and extremely stylized backdrops, making the movie’s look very theatrical. I read that Peyton Reed went on eBay to find most of the props used in this movie… pretty crazy! According to IMDB, “To create this movie's vivid, stylized appearance, cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth digitally color-timed the movie to simulate the appearance of three-strip Technicolor.” 55 sets were built for this movie!

All in all, I thought the movie was very enjoyable. I would definitely recommend it, it was very light and airy but also very theatrical, which I enjoy.

LIZZ