Title: Down with Love |
Release Date: 2003 |
Nationality and Language: |
Running time: 94 Minutes |
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Distributor and Production Company: 20th Century Fox and Regency |
Director; Writer: Peyton Reeds |
Producer: |
Cast: Renee Zellweger, Ewan McGregor, David Hyde Pierce, Sarah Paulsen |
Technical: |
Relevance to HPPUB site: |
Review: This film blends 50s-style situation comedy and satire. In fact, it is a satire of both the social values that preceded the Civil Rights movement, and of the overly glitzy entertainment style of that area, and it works. But it probably wouldn’t work if repeated or cloned. I don’t think this is a renewal of an old film genre. But this film sharpens the discussion that so much preoccupies investors of publicly traded media companies. Must movies first entertain, or should they deliver social messages. It is not easy to do both, as screenwriters often fall into manipulation. This film does deliver its message through pure satire, although the stereotyped delivery tends to make the viewer feel that the message doesn’t really matter. In fact, the film opens with the 20th Century
Fox fanfare (and I don’t know why Warner Brothers, Fox, remember, had originated CinemaScope in 1953 with The Robe and it was used with other spectacles. In time, the process got to be used with musicals and particularly glitzy comedies like Three Coins in the Fountain. So this film brings (supposedly set in 1962) brings back the look of entertainment in that era, with the snazzy jazz music background that seems rather cold today, and the rich palette of studio hues and shades, that can be manipulated even further by directors with the various stocks of commercial film. But Petyon Reed’s point is that a gaudy situation comedy really can make fun of the social values of the time in a way not possible during that era. Pseudonymed Barbara Novak (Renee Zellweger) writes a best seller book “Down with Love,” in which she argues that women can start a social revelation of the Betty Friedan type, including equality with men in the workplace and, moreover, enjoy sex without commitment the way men supposedly do. With a little tweaking by a publicist it becomes an overnight best seller. The plot unfolds as a scheme for Barbara to get her man (publishing editor Catcher Block (Ewan McGregor) at her old employer MacManus, owned by Peter MacManus (David Hyde Pierce). It turns into typical operatic situation comedy (about “down with love girls”) with mistaken identities and oversized, exchanged penthouse apartments with Frank Lloyd Wright décor. In one scene, a record collection is torn to shreds by a record changer as the 1812 Overture concludes. Late in the script, editor Vikki (Sarah Paulsen), trying to figure out the apartment switching and gender bending, accuses Peter of being “a homosexual” with the hots for Catcher (whose hairy chest shows often enough), but the film (unlike the 50s drama Far from Heaven) doesn’t stay with that point for long. In an early confrontation between MacManus and Catcher there is a comical and odd discussion of workplace stocking garters and male prudishness about showing their legs, indeed “shiny shins” that give away the idea that men go downhill rather quickly physically (especially when they smoke). As an author of a socially sharp edged book “Do Ask, Do Tell” I rather chuckled that a lonely person could, in fiction, change the world so suddenly (though reversibly) with an overnight best seller about gender roles. Here is a reaction from a reader well versed in film technology: I enjoyed your review of the film. I
saw it projected and it somewhat simulated See also his comments on motion picture technology at this link. If you want a gay or gender-bending spoof of garish 50’s
Technicolor movie making, try Sundance’s Die, Mommie Die,
directed by Charles Busch, who plays in the movie as drag queen Angela Arden
himself. There is a nice convoluted plot like Arsenic and Old Lace, or
perhaps The Trouble With Harry, with a bit of Baby Jane. Stark Sands plays
the stereotyped mommie’s boy Lance, nice and tall
and thin with no hair on his chest, of course, especially when he seduces the
policeman played by Jason Priestly. France Conroy plays the old maid Bootsie Carp, and Philip Baker Hall plays the Jewish
movie mogul who needs to get out of the way. Were this not headed for so many
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