Down With Love

Down with LoveSupposedly, the Ewan McGregor and Renee Zellweger romantic comedy Down With Love is an attempt to recreate the new York City of 1963 (some say to recreate Doris Day/Rock Hudson’s ‘Pillow Talk‘). As I haven’t actually seen Pillow Talk it’s hard to compare the two but most reviewers suggest the Doris Day comedy is considerably more sophisticated.

Still, for a Saturday night on the sofa this wasn’t so bad. It had amusing moments. Zellweger is Barbara Novak, in town promoting her smash-hit book that carries the same title as the film and they’ve tried to make her look the part of a 1960s New York girl – I am not sure if they were that successful. McGregor is Catcher Block, the cad-about-town investigative magazine journalist who has a string of lovely ladies after him. Inevitably he is to interview her for a magazine article and the chase is on. Both performances are confident but certainly not great. David Hyde Pierce, as Block’s publisher, seems to repeat his role as Frasier’s Niles but that’s no bad thing as he puts in a solid, amusing supporting performance.

There’s a great pay-off (which I shan’t spoil) but suffice to say Zellweger’s long monologue is impressive and, apparently, took six takes to get right. It’s one of those films where you need to watch the credits as there’s a musical scene (apparently shot at the request of the actors) over the end titles which is well done.

Down With Love is amusing for the most part but it’s kind of predicable in many places but it was a good Saturday night sofa film. See it and smile.

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