| Down with Love | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Peyton Reed |
| Screenplay by |
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| Produced by | |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Jeff Cronenweth |
| Edited by | Larry Bock |
| Music by | Marc Shaiman |
Production companies |
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| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
Release dates |
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Running time | 102 minutes |
| Countries | |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $35 million[2] |
| Box office | $39.5 million[3] |
Down with Love is a 2003romantic comedy film directed byPeyton Reed. It starsRenée Zellweger andEwan McGregor and is apastiche of the early-1960s American "no-sex sex comedies",[4] such asPillow Talk andLover Come Back (both starringRock Hudson,Doris Day, andTony Randall) and the "myriad spawn"[5] of derivative films that followed;Time film criticRichard Corliss wrote thatDown with Love "is so clogged with specific references to a half-dozen Rock-and-Doris-type comedies that it serves as definitive distillation of the genre."[4] Randall himself plays a small role inDown with Love, "bestowing his sly, patriarchal blessing"[6] on the film, which also starsDavid Hyde Pierce (in the neurotic best friend role often played by Randall orGig Young),Sarah Paulson,Rachel Dratch,Jeri Ryan, andJack Plotnick, who spoofs the kind of role Chet Stratton played inLover Come Back.
Typical of the genre, the film tells the story of a woman who advocates female independence in combat with alothario; the plot reflects the attitudes and behaviour of the early pre-sexual revolution 1960s but has ananachronistic conclusion driven by more modern,post-feminist ideas and attitudes. Though the film received a mixed critical response at the time of release and underperformed at the box office, it has since undergone a critical reappraisal and grown acult following for its subversion of rom-com conventions.[7]
In 1962, aspiring author Barbara Novak arrives in New York to promote her book,Down with Love, to Banner House publishing. It is about freeing women from love, enjoying sex without commitment, and replacing the need for a man with things such as chocolate. Barbara believes that her rules will help boost women in the workplace and the world in general.
When Banner House's male executives do not appreciate the book, Vikki Hiller, Barbara's editor, suggests that Barbara meet with Catcher Block—a successful writer forKnow magazine—to help promote the book. However, Catcher repeatedly avoids meeting Barbara until, fed up, she insults him. Catcher's boss and best friend, Peter MacMannus, and Vikki develop a mutual attraction, but neither is brave enough to express their feelings. Peter feels overshadowed by Catcher's strong personality, and Vikki wants to see strength in her lover, even assuming Peter must begay.
Barbara and Vikki persuadeJudy Garland to sing "Down with Love" onThe Ed Sullivan Show to promote the book. Sales skyrocket, as women around the world rebel against their men; Catcher now wants to meet Barbara butshe rejectshim. The breaking point comes as Barbara appears on a national TV show and discusses a chapter from her book—"The Worst Kind of Man"—and cites Catcher Block as the perfect example, causing the women he dates to reject him.
Catcher schemes to prove that Barbara really wants love and marriage like every other woman. He poses as Major Zip Martin, an attentive astronaut with a Southern accent. Barbara becomes infatuated with a man who seems unaware of her celebrity, in contrast to the men who now avoid her since her book was published. As "Zip" takes her to fashionable New York locations, he maintains sexual tension by feigning naiveté and a desire to remain chaste until he is "ready" for a physical relationship. His plan becomes complicated after he starts falling for her.
When Barbara encounters Catcher/Zip at a party, which nearly exposes his true identity, he decides to take things to the next level. He says that Catcher Block wants to interview him for an exposé on theNASA space program and asks her to be there. At his apartment, he sets everything up to record her saying that she loves him. As they are about to have sex, one of his lovers, Gwendolyn, walks in. Not knowing who Barbara is, she exposes Catcher's identity, forcing him to confess to Barbara.
Barbara then reveals that she is actually Nancy Brown, one of Catcher's many former secretaries, who had fallen in love with him while working atKnow. She had turned down a date with him, refusing to be another fling. She wanted to be different from the other women he knew, and make him fall in love with her. Catcher proclaims that he wants to marry her, but Gwendolyn, having overheard Barbara Novak's name, thanks her for what she has done for womankind.
Barbara realizes that she does not want love or Catcher, as she has become a real "down with love" girl. Vikki and Peter's relationship also changes when she insults him for helping Catcher. Peter says that he is like any other man, and takes Vikki to Catcher's apartment to have sex with her.
Days later, Catcher is depressed and has failed to win back Barbara. Even his exposé, which he wrote on how falling in love with her made him a better man, is ruined now that Barbara has told her story in her own magazine,Now. Catcher goes toNow on the pretense of a job interview. He tells Barbara how much she has changed him and wishes there could be a middle ground for them, somewhere between her confident blonde persona and her original brunette self. After he leaves her office, she surprises him on the elevator, showing him a bright-red hair style. She has found the middle ground and wants to be with him. They elope to Las Vegas, inspiring Vikki and Peter to also get married. Barbara and Catcher's marriage results in a new book aimed at ending the battle of the sexes.
The sets,costumes,cinematography,editing,score, opening credits, andvisual effects (includingsplit-screen shots during phone calls heavily laced withdouble entendres between the two leads), echo the style of Hollywood sex comedies from 1959 to 1964 (fromPillow Talk toSex and the Single Girl).[8][9] TheNew York City skyline of 1962 was digitally recreated for backdrops.[7] Agreenscreen technique was used to simulate unconvincing 1960srear projection using restored street footage from the late 1950s and early 1960s. In accordance with the film's style, the 1950s20th Century Fox logo with theCinemaScope logo, a wide-screen process introduced in the 1950s, developed and owned by 20th Century Fox, was utilized with the addition of the byline for News Corporation and the 1998 version of the fanfare, composed byAlfred Newman.[10][11] TheRegency Enterprises logo is in pink, and contains a saxophone jazz rendition of its theme.[11]
Down with Love was chosen as "the perfect film" to open the secondTribeca Film Festival, where it made its premiere.[12] The film opened first in New York, and was released countrywide a week later on May 16, 2003. The film was released as counter programming againstThe Matrix Reloaded.[2] Though the film was highly anticipated,[13] it performed far below box office expectations in comparison with other rom-coms released in the same year, such asHow to Lose a Guy in 10 Days andSomething's Gotta Give, both of which grossed over $100 million.[7][14]Down with Love ultimately made just $39.5 million worldwide on a $35 million budget.[3]
At the time of its release,Down With Love received extremely varying reviews.Chicago Sun-Times criticRoger Ebert spoke of the film fairly positively, saying parts were "fun" and describing Zellweger's speech at the end as "a torrent of words [pouring] out from her character's innermost soul".[10]A. O. Scott inThe New York Times praised director "Reed's buoyant homage", Zellweger's Doris Day-like ability to "swivel engagingly between goofiness and sex appeal", McGregor's Sinatra-like "wiry, wolfish energy" and screenwriters Ahlert's and Drake's "canny cocktail of period vernacular and deliberately labored double entendres", finding the movie "intelligent and amusing" with "a glorious, hectic artificiality". But he questioned "the point of the exercise" compared withTodd Haynes'Far from Heaven, which "plunged into the subtext of those old movies", whereasDown with Love, being an "updating and a critique", "snips that subtext away", making it "less sophisticated than what it imitates".[6]
Conversely,The San Francisco Chronicle'sMick LaSalle wrote, "Down With Love is superior toFar From Heaven", which "seems naive in comparison" because "Down with Love is a very smart, very shrewd movie, and the smartest, shrewdest thing about it is the way it masquerades as just a fluffy comedy, a diversion, a trifle. Hardly a trifle,Down With Love distills 40 years of sexual politics into 100 minutes, using the romantic-comedy conventions of an earlier time to comment on the governing social assumptions of yesterday—and today, as well... The brilliance ofDown With Love is that it slyly reminds us that our modern perspective, like every 'modern perspective' that preceded it, is doomed to obsolescence and isn't some final stage of enlightened social thought."[15]
Opposing opinions occurred even at the same newspaper, as withThe New York Observer, whereRex Reed's review was headlined "Down With Down With Love!"[16] butAndrew Sarris's headline countered with "It's Affectionate and Smart, And I'm Down With Love".[17]
Richard Corliss ofTime admired Orlandi's costumes and Laws' design for their "giddily precise exaggeration" and wrote that the script "has a gentle heart to humanize its sharp sitcom wit," advising his readers to "stay for the movie's denouement: a two-minute speech that wraps up the plot like Christmas ribbons around a time bomb". But he found the film to be "miscast at the top" and "conflicted about its subject—it both derides and adores what it means to parody" and that director "Reed often uses a gong where chimes would do." Corliss concludes: "As you see, we too are conflicted about this film. We want to love it, but like a Rock Hudson rake, we keep finding fault in its allure. We want to hate it, but like Doris Day, we finally can't say no".[5]
In the years after its release,Nathan Rabin,Jonathan Rosenbaum,[18] andRichard Brody have been among the critics and film theorists that have continued to write in praise of the film.[19] Rabin wrote that Chicago critics by and large embracedDown With Love, noting: "It got two thumbs up fromEbert & Roeper and was No. 2 on Rosenbaum’s Top 10 list in theChicago Reader."[20] Rosenbaum called it a "masterpiece" and wrote, "If a more interesting and entertaining Hollywood movie thanDown with Love has come along this year, I've missed it".[21]
Down with Love holds a 60% approval rating atreview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, based on reviews from 179 critics, with an average rating of 6.10/10. The site's consensus states: "Looks great, but Zellweger and McGregor have no chemistry together, and the self-satisfied, knowing tone grates".[22] OnMetacritic, the film has a score of 52 out of 100 based on 39 critics' reviews, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[23]
In August 2018,Vanity Fair putDown With Love at Number 13 on their list of the top "25 Best Romantic Comedies of All Time".[24] In June 2017, Jonathan Rosenbaum namedDown With Love one of his "25 Favorite Films of the 21st Century (so far)".[25] In 2023, Beatrice Loayza ofThe New York Times wrote of the film’s cult following, saying "its meta-referential charms" have been embraced by a "younger generation…that better understands the role-playing nature of gender and romantic courtship…The film mocks, but it also transports with its eye-candy visuals and coy performances, reminding us that a suspension of reason is required to perform gender, to be sucked into a rom-com and, even, to fall in love."[7]
The film's title comes from the song "Down with Love" as sung byJudy Garland, who is seen singing it onThe Ed Sullivan Show in one scene.[26]
The song "Here's to Love" sung by Zellweger and McGregor during theclosing credits (and in its entirety on the DVD release as a special feature) was a last-minute addition to the film.[27] SongwritersMarc Shaiman andScott Wittman appear in the number as the bartender and the pianist. According to the DVD commentary, it was added at the suggestion of McGregor, who pointed out the opportunity the filmmakers had to unite the stars of two recently popular musical films (hisMoulin Rouge! and Zellweger'sChicago).[28]
The songs "Kissing a Fool" and "For Once in My Life", sung byMichael Bublé, previously appeared on Bublé's2003 self-titled album.
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Performer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Down with Love" | Edgar Yipsel Harburg;Harold Arlen | Michael Bublé andHolly Palmer | 2:31 |
| 2. | "Barbara Arrives" | Marc Shaiman | Marc Shaiman | 2:08 |
| 3. | "Fly Me to the Moon (In Other Words)" | Bart Howard | Frank Sinatra andCount Basie and His Orchestra | 2:30 |
| 4. | "One Mint Julep" | Rudy Toombs | Xavier Cugat and His Orchestra | 3:06 |
| 5. | "For Once in My Life" | Ron Miller; Orlando Murden | Michael Bublé | 2:33 |
| 6. | "Girls Night Out" | Marc Shaiman | Marc Shaiman | 1:00 |
| 7. | "Everyday Is a Holiday (With You)" | Jenny-Bea Englishman;Sean Lennon | Esthero | 2:59 |
| 8. | "Kissing a Fool" | George Michael | Michael Bublé | 4:35 |
| 9. | "Barbara Meets Zip" | Marc Shaiman | Marc Shaiman | 4:08 |
| 10. | "Fly Me to the Moon (In Other Words)" | Bart Howard | Astrud Gilberto | 2:20 |
| 11. | "Love in Three Acts" | Marc Shaiman | Marc Shaiman | 6:52 |
| 12. | "Here's to Love" | Marc Shaiman;Scott Wittman | Renée Zellweger andEwan McGregor | 3:10 |
| Total length: | 37:52 | |||
