*** (out of ****)
Starring Ewan McGregor, Renee Zellweger, Sarah Paulson, David Hyde Pierce, and Tony Randall
Directed by Peyton Reed & written by Eve Ahlert and Dennis Drake
2003
102 min PG13
Now here’s a movie I liked a lot more than I thought I would. On the heels of “Far From Heaven,” a drama in the style of the 1950s and early ‘60s, is “Down with Love,” a comedy in the style of the same period. Like the movies Rock Hudson and Doris Day used to make, it’s a genial battle of the sexes about the workplace versus home, philandering versus monogamy. It’s choreographed like a musical, with split-screen phon conversations, all wonderfully overproduced, with giant sets and backlots in pinks and baby blue, and wonderfully overorchestrated so that every wink, blush, and hand motion has an entire string section to go with it. The only real modern touch is that everything is little bit more exaggerated than it already was to begin with—the costumes, the production design, the pacing, the hidden gay jokes—and some of the double entendres are so bold that they’d make 007 blush. The movie may have no other purpose than as an exercise in watching good-looking actors like Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor be charming and whimsical, and at that it succeeds admirably.
The real star of “Down with Love” is director Peyton Reed. For me, the most inaccessible genre of mainstream American film is those made in the ‘50s and early ‘60s and set in ‘50s and early ‘60s. I’m sort of a black hole between “All About Eve” and “The Apartment,” unless the director’s last name begins with “Hitch” and ends with “cock.” Films of this style can so easily become lead-footed, plodding, and stuck in the mud, as if the filmmakers are daunted by the enormous sets and the endless march of bright costumes. It’s as if they think all they have to do is set up a camera and let the production values and handsome cast sell themselves. So my hat’s off to Peyton Reed for avoiding this fate entirely, for making “Down with Love” brisk, lively, and almost cartoonish, with one joke on the heel of another, and for his seeming indifference to the lavishness of his surroundings. For an idea of the pacing, Ewan McGregor undresses, showers, and towels off in about three seconds flat.
Oh, you wanted a plot summary? Well, what did you think it was going to be about? There’s a woman who has sworn off men in favor of the workplace and a philandering man who tries to trick her into admitting that deep down she wants to get married and settle. Duh. First is Barbara Novak (Renee, playing a character I suspect is named after Kim Novak and Barbara Bel Geddes, both of “Vertigo”), author of “Down with Love,” a book about how women should get a job, stay single, swear off love, and enjoy meaningless, random sex, “the way a man does.” Then there’s the wonderfully named Catcher Block (Ewan), a writer for a gentleman’s magazine, before that was a euphemism for “porno,” out to expose her. She’s all pink and pouty lips, he’s all charm, cocky walk, and an incredibly white set of teeth, exposed at regular intervals in a dopey grin. Is there a mistaken identity? Does he pretend to love her only to really fall in love with her? Does she teach him the value of monogamy while he teaches her the joys of marriage? Does the pope wear a funny hat?
(Actually, to the movie’s credit, there’s a surprising switcheroo in the third act that is handled in perhaps the only way it could be handled, but the less said about that the better…)
Of course there’s a B couple to go with the A couple. He’s Catcher’s publisher (David Hyde Pierce of TV’s “Fraser”) and she’s her editor (Sarah Paulson). Each is longing for the other but is pushed apart by Catcher and Barbara’s mutual antagonism. If “Far From Heaven” was any indication, there was an undercurrent of the love-that-dare-not-speak-its-name in a lot of movies of the ‘50s and ‘60s. Men don’t get much less manly than David Hyde Pierce and “Down with Love” gets plenty of mileage out of just how unintentionally gay he and Ewan are with each other. When he’s not threatening Catcher’s job, he’s in awe of Catcher’s raw masculinity. A character is named Nancy so we can enjoy the throwaway gag of her name being called out and Pierce sputtering “who are you calling a nancy?”
This is also a swell movie to look at in precisely the same way as a real, Technicolor-CinemaScope film of the time. Every internal space is an obvious set; apartments are vast and cavernous, with wide open spaces, no ceilings, color-matched everything, and no fourth walls. Windows look out on painted skylines with fake moons and five-pointed stars. In the DVD commentary, director Reed points out that Renee’s opening scene takes place while walking across the street from the Pan Am skyscraper to the UN building, with the Empire State in the background. It’s a geographical impossibility, but it’s also a parody of the way films of the period would relentlessly hammer home “this is New York!”
The stars change from one brand new, spotless, and loud costume to another in every scene and Marc Shaiman’s score is absurdly gigantic. The director of photography (of “Fight Club” and “One Hour Photo,” I’m not kidding) shoots so all the pinks and pastels can pop out. I can’t imagine any of this gloss and excess being at home in a comedy of the ‘40s, like “His Girl Friday” or “The Philadelphia Story.” The overall lushness perhaps reflects perceived feelings of prosperity. Certainly the dramas wanted to look pretty so that the sordid, hidden underbelly behind those white picket fences would seem more rotten. Beats me why the comedies would want to do the same. Maybe it’s just eyecandy for eyecandy’s sake.
No doubt the so-called “sex comedies” which “Down with Love” is mimicking reflect the changing gender roles after World War II. Some of them were trying to get women back in the home, some of them were trying to get them to be supermothers and superwives, and some of them were trying to look revolutionary while actually being reactionary. What movies of the era never did—or at least I doubt it—was say that a woman could be completely satisfied by the single life. They all endorsed finding a balance for both partners between home and work. Like I said before, I have no idea if “Down with Love” sincerely means anything said in it, and it may just be making fun of it. But it is sincere about its love for this style of filmmaking, and that’s good enough.
Finished Thursday January 13th, 2005
Copyright © 2005 Friday & Saturday Night
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