Posted: 05/20/2003

Down with Love

(2003)

by Hope Villanueva

Round up the girlfriends for this one. Heck, round up anybody who isn’t going to take themselves too seriously.

Upon the opening animated credits played the tune “Down With Love”, crooned by two very familiar voices that I knew, without being told, belonged to Moulin Rouge’s belter and balladeer Ewan McGregor and Chicago’s raspy voiced murderess, Renee Zellwegger. Candy tinted credits and sappy out-dated lounge music initiated me and my co-conspiring gal pals into the universe of Down With Love.

Now, let’s be honest. Zellwegger is a charming gal to watch on the screen, but we women, having already seen The Matrix Reloaded that week, went to Down With Love for one reason: Ewan. If you didn’t admire his turn as heroin addict turned struggling good guy in Trainspotting, you needed to party more during your youth. If you couldn’t feel a little of the cool Jedi from him in Star Wars, the movie put you to sleep in the first 10 minutes (which wouldn’t be too surprising.) And any woman who didn’t fall head over heels for him as the love-struck, poetry and song spouting Christian in Moulin Rouge has not a drop of blood in their veins. McGregor’s Catcher Block will not disappoint.

Love follows the misadventures of Barbara Novak(Zellweger), a sweet librarian from Maine who writes the ultimate in woman power literature of the day, which proclaims that in three easy steps, the women of the 60’s can take their place as the equals of men. Step 1: Abstain from love and men, using the tried and true self pleasuring substitute, chocolate. Step 2: Focus your energies into your career, undistracted by romance. Step 3: With career in place and withdrawal from love complete, proceed to have free sex, sans commitment, just like a man would, and enjoy it. Barbara goes to New York and teamed with her editor and new best friend, Vicki (Sarah Paulson), they try to promote the book, only to be shut out by the male dominated publishing world. Vicki suggests a new approach, via an interview at a men’s magazine by acclaimed writer and notorious ladies’ man, Catcher Block (McGregor.) After being stood up on several occasions by Catcher, much to the dismay of Catcher’s editor (David Hyde Pierce), the ladies try a television stunt, making Barbara’s book a sudden success. After Barbara takes a jab at Catcher on national television, Catcher makes it his mission to take Barbara down by proving that she is just like every other old fashioned girl by making her fall in love with him. So he takes on the guise of mild mannered Texan astronaut Zip Martin to win her love and the games begin.

Setting the stage was of the utmost importance in this film, and producers Bruce Cohen and Dan Jinks (of American Beauty) were game to the task. The sets are lavish yet appropriately artificial. The story is set in a fake and cheesy version of the sixties and the production design needed to reflect that mentality. The highlights include Barbara’s bachlorette pad with artfully painted skyline and cotton candy pink couches and Catcher’s apartment, which is everything new fangled and ridiculous, including a bed that comes out of the couch and a lit up wet bar, both of which come out of the walls at the throw of a switch. The costumes play to that same idea. Just wait until the party scene at Catcher’s pad. Paulson and Zellwegger’s entrance into the restaurant for their first meeting with Catcher is a costume designer’s fantasy. Cinematic style is also, in tune to the genre, exemplified by a date montage of Barbara and Zip hitting the town, doing everything from Broadway shows and concerts to twisting the night away at a club.

The actors’ interplay is just as silly with Hyde Pierce’s neuroses countering McGregor’s suaveness and Paulson’s business-like mannerisms balance Zellwegger’s swooning over Zip. The foursome takes the ridiculousness of the dialogue and makes it into playtime with innuendos. Tony Randall makes a fun cameo as the owner of the company that publishes Barbara’s book. Zellwegger oozes sexy determination, but never loses the femininity or the sweetness that keeps Barbara from being merely a social climber. McGregor’s Catcher Block is seductive, intelligent and manipulating. He has the wonderful skill of making his character seem completely superficial and then sneaking in glimpses of weakness and longing through subtle changes of expression. And no one has ever made eating a chocolate bar look so sexy.

Yeah, I know you have to go see the Matrix. And you probably have to go see the X-Men sequel, too. But after you’ve had your dose of adrenaline, get the womenfolk together and take a flashback to the sixties with Down With Love.

Hope Villanueva is a Los Angeles thespian who is strongly in support of film that says something, as she is trying to make theatre that says something.

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