Down with Love (2003)

Idea: After a journalist assigned to interview her continually blows her off, feminist author Barbara Novak (Renee Zellweger) decides to make her manifesto, Down with Love, a bestseller and refuses swinging investigative reporter Catcher Block (Ewan McGregor) an interview. Then she goes on national television to tell women everywhere that he is the epitome of the man to avoid. Not to be undone by a woman, Catcher hatches a scheme to make Barbara fall in love with him and reveal her hypocrisy to the world. Oh, New York City in 1962.

A throwback to the Rock Hudson/Doris Day romantic comedies of the sixties, the characterization in this movie is top notch. Although this movie is writing team Eve Ahlert and Dennis Drake’s silver screen debut, they sure have done their homework. The movie is littered with all the wit, warmth, and sex appeal Hudson and Day used to infuse their movies with. The two of them working together was charm personified, and they played it to the hilt.

McGregor and Zellweger do their best to bring that campy and comfortable feel back the big screen. McGregor manages to mix in Sean Connery’s James Bond’s devil may care attitude and philandering with Hudson’s confidence and zeal, and the mix is as charming as it is incendiary. Zellweger’s a queen of both comedy and drama, and she does Day better than Day herself because her character isn’t reduced to tears as Day so often was. Unfortunately, their strong performances can’t save the movie from the over-the-top plot twists in the end. Some of them are reasonable and reminiscent of the tangles Hudson and Day used to get themselves into, but, in the end, it’s a little too much.

Peyton Reed’s direction is smooth and showcases the movie’s strong performers, but no direction can aid an ending that convoluted.

Oh, and David Hyde Pierce and Sarah Paulson as Catcher’s and Barbara’s editors, respectively, are delightful.

Plus, McGregor and Zellweger belt out a catchy little ditty at the end. I like it.