Film
Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
- Home
- Box Office
- Listings
- Trailers
- Features
Bookmark this page- Edition:
Down with Love (2003)
Director: Peyton Reed
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Tony Randall's droll comic turns in late '50s/early '60s romantic comedies such as Let's Make Love and Pillow Talk were often an acid test. His sharp tongue gave welcome edge to the fluffy sex wars. Now in his 80s, he has a cameo in this self-conscious and zestless period makeover as the unattractive, bullying boss of a swish NYC publishing house, and there's something about the uninflected coarsening of his role that characterises the movie as a whole. Zellweger plays ambitious boondocks author Barbara Novak, whose 'sensation' on what gals of the post-Pill generation really want propels her into the twirling headlines. McGregor is tuxedo'd Casanova and celeb journalist Catcher Block who, for a dastardly scoop, disguises himself into her affections in a titillating game of emotional double bluff. If Todd Haynes' incisive melodrama Far from Heaven proved that imitation can be the sincerest form of flattery, this, for all its meticulous period reconstruction, saturated 'Scope camerwork, split screens, gauzed diamante close-ups and musical inserts, suggests that mere mechanical copying can produce a pretty unconvincing forgery.Author: WH
Cast & crew
Director: Peyton Reed
Producer: Bruce Cohen, Dan Jinks
Cast: Renée Zellweger, Ewan McGregor, David Hyde Pierce, Sarah Paulson, Tony Randall, Rachel Dratch, Jack Plotnick, John Aylward, Warren Munson, Matt Ross, Michael Ensign, Timothy Omundson full cast
Duration: 101 mins
Most popular on this site
Features
To the letter
Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.
Mind over matter
David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.
Fool's gold
Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.
We are the championed
Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."
A history of violence
Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.
True romantic
James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.
Playing in the dark
MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.
Junk bonds
Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.
What do you think?
Post your review now