Down With Love: ****
This delightful romp is an homage to early 60s
romantic comedies like Pillow Talk or Lover Come Back (both Doris Day and Rock
Hudson) or Bells Are Ringing (with the fabulous Judy
Holliday).
Renee Zellweger is the
liberated young woman who has just published a feminist bestseller much like Sex
and the Single Girl, while Ewan McGregor is the cad reporter determined to woo
her and expose her for the quivering romantic he knows all women to
be.
It's a plot we've seen a hundred
times, but it's done with freshness and energy, and does come up with a few
surprises. The movie frolics with the conventions of 60s movies, and gets
constant laughs poking fun at them. It never mocks, though, showing a genuine
appreciation for the froth.
Everything
is spot-on, from the costumes to the music to the acting to the outlandish
soundstage city backdrops. And Renee's got an earnest, breathless monologue
that gets big laughs not because it's funny, but because it goes on so bloody
long.
If you've never seen a Doris Day
picture, you probably won't get Down With Love at all, but it's sure to please
any movie buff.
Filed Wed - June 11, 2003, 01:23 PM in
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