Even though it is set in 1962 and borrows liberally from the many Doris Day/Rock Hudson battles of the sexes, it doesn't endorse those idea, merely tweaks them. Tony Randall, a supporting actor in many of those classic films, even has a guest appearance in this film.
I wouldn't be surprised if few IGN readers ever saw those movies. Heck, I doubt your parents did. But it's not a bad movie, and after a week of heavy films, it made for a nice break without being an annoying chick flick.
The Movie
Barbara Novak (Renee Zellweger) arrives in New York with a dream and a manuscript. She has written a book called "Down With Love," which advocates that women shun sex and replace it with eating chocolate instead, since it will have a similar effect. Foregoing sex would be the only way for them to focus on their career and achieve any success in the workforce.
She visits the publisher, Vikki Hiller (Sarah Paulson), and pitch the book to a boardroom of patronizing old white men. After some trepidation on their part, they agree to publish the book. There's a funny contrast while Novak makes her pitch and the way Hiller is treated by the men.
At first, the book goes nowhere and has almost no shelf space. Hiller attempts to set up Novak with Catcher Block (Ewan McGregor), a womanizing, male chauvinist pig who just happens to be a journalist (that hurts). Block has no time for a book like this and repeatedly blows her off.
Hiller does score a coup by getting Novak on the Ed Sullivan Show. She hypes her book and trashes Catcher Block all in the same time. Overnight, the book is a best seller. It knocks John F. Kennedy's Profiles in Courage off the top of the best-seller charts. About time, too, since JFK's book was published in 1956. Doh!
The end result is a headache for both Block and Novak. Men are furious that women have shut them off, so Novak is dateless. Women have taken Novak's advice, so Block isn't getting any, either. He bets his boss Peter MacMannus (David Hyde Pierce, only a little less stiff and neurotic than he is in Frasier) that he can seduce Novak, and expose her as the fraud she is.
The movie has a lot of fun using split-screen techniques that were used in 1960s romantic comedies to imply sexual activity. Anyone who wastes their time watching this in foolscreen will really miss out. Some of you may think they got the plot device from the Austin Powers films, but these movies are where the idea originated.
I enjoyed Renee more in this movie than in almost anything I've seen her in. She has all the innocence and charm that Doris Day showed in her movies, although she's nowhere near Doris's equal. Like so many of Doris's characters, Barbara Novak is tempted but never compromises her morals. Ewan McGregor is a hoot as the James Bond journalist, although he doesn't do a very good job of hiding his accent. Borg babe Jeri Ryan has a supporting slot as a supposedly British stewardess, but her accent isn't working very well, either.
If there's a complaint to be had, and snobs who fawned over Far From Heaven will make this, is that the movie is every bit the light fluff as the Hudson/Day movies. There's nothing here when it comes to deeper meaning that some people demand in their films, really.
It's set in 1962, when TV married couples slept in separate beds and you couldn't use the word "pregnant." It was before the sexual revolution and the women's movement. It's not endorsing those attitudes, in many ways it's tweaking them. There's also a great deleted scene where Vikki is pitching what would later become hugely successful books and the board, angry at being shut off by their wives, pass on all of them.
Some people have compared this movie to Pillow Talk, one of several Day/Hudson films. Well, it is and it isn't. It's modeled after them but certainly doesn't have 1959 morals. Barbara Novak is basically telling women in her book to forsake love for their career and just screw around with no emotional connection. Doris Day's characters would never endorse being as promiscuous as men.
It's fluff, simple as that. Don't expect much beyond the surface and you won't be disappointed.
Score: 6 out of 10
The Video
The video is presented in the film's original 2.35:1 anamorphic format, and has a healthy bitrate of 7.37 MB/sec. The video quality is just amazing. Fox really kicked some tail with this transfer. To mimic the style of the period pictures, director Peyton Reed went for very wide shots with heavy emphasis on a single color in a shot. Catcher's apartment is all blue, the boardroom is deep red, and so on.
All of these colors are rich, deep and vibrant to a fantastic degree, and with solid lines, preventing bleed or ghosting. There's no edge enhancement or dot crawl, even in the dark reds of the board room, and all the fine detail in the wood paneling, 60s fashions and sets shine through.
One of the best ways to bring out compression errors and artifacting is smoke, and they smoke like chimneys in this film, especially Vikki. However, the smoke billows with no problems at all.
Score: 9 out of 10
Languages and Audio
Down With Love comes with a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, plus Spanish and French Dolby two-channel surround sound. Subtitles are available in English and Spanish.
This movie is entirely character-driven, meaning the center channel gets the lion's share of the work. In that regard, it works very well. Voices are all clean and clear and up front, with no hiss or distortion.
The soundtrack is straight out of the early 60s and fits in beautifully with the story. It has that same chirpy, upbeat sound used in the Doris Day movies and makes the most of the surround sound.
If you want a showcase for your surround sound system, look elsewhere. For this story, the audio track fits the bill nicely.
Score: 7 out of 10
Packaging and Extras
The movie comes in an Amaray case. Not sure if there's an insert, since this is a pre-release copy.
Village Roadshow, take notes. This is how you do extras. This disc is loaded for bear with extras. Of course we have the usual animated menus, in hot pink (just like the keep case). There's a commentary track by director Peyton Reed, who drives home the point that this is an homage to the Doris Day/Rock Hudson movies. He also talks about all the shots, points out little things you might miss, and so on.
There are five deleted scenes, with optional commentary by Reed. They are unprocessed, meaning they look like near-raw footage. One that I think should have been left in was Vikki pitching books like Sex and the Single Girl, which became best-sellers, and the publishers all passing on them.
The Here's to Love music video features Ewan and Renee stretching their singing muscles again. He sang in Moulin Rouge and she sang in Chicago so it's familiar territory.
The seven-minute blooper reel was priceless, with Ewan screwing up the most. At one point he says "Who am I?" and someone off screen says "Obi-Wan."
There are several featurettes as well. Guess My Game is made to look like a 1960s celebrity show, which actually takes place in the movie, where Barbara nailed Catcher for being a rat. The Down With Love Hair and Wardrobe Tests is about the cast modeling the styles and fashions in the movie.
Down With Love: The Documentaries is six short pieces on the movie: on location, reproducing the New York of the 1960s through CG, a look at the costume design, a look at the music and soundtrack, a short tribute to Tony Randall, and finally a piece on the use of split screen, narrated by Reed, which was a lot harder than it looked. There's also a 14 minute HBO special on the making of the movie, with interviews with the cast and crew.
All told, quite a detailed look behind the scenes. There are no DVD-ROM features.
Score: 9 out of 10