Product Description

Renee Zellweger (Chicago) and Ewan McGregor (Moulin Rouge) are the toast of the town in the most stylish romantic comedy of the year! From the producers of American Beauty and the director of Bring It On comes a teasing, tantalizing battle of the sexes that is "pure enchantment" (Daily News). When best-selling feminist author Barbara Novak (Zellweger) becomes the target of dashing playboy Catcher Block (McGregor), these sparring, would-be lovers generate enough sparks to fly you to the moon and back. In other words, the ultimate catch has just met his match!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10704 in DVD
• Brand: Twentieth Century Fox
• Released on: 2003-10-07
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, Spanish
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Dubbed in: French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 101 minutes

Amazon.com
The bright, glossy world of Doris Day and Rock Hudson sex comedies gets a self-aware brush-up in Down with Love. Pillow-lipped Renée Zellweger (Chicago) plays Barbara Novak, the author of a bestselling book called Down with Love that advises women to focus on their careers and have sex à la carte--just like a man would. Determined to prove that Novak is just as vulnerable to love as any woman, dashingly chauvinist magazine writer Catcher Block (ever-charming Ewan McGregor, Moulin Rouge) pretends to be a courtly astronaut who wouldn't dream of putting his hand on a woman's knee. This piffle of a story seems like nothing more than an excuse for ironic double-entendres and dazzling production design, until a sneaky plot twist suddenly raises the stakes for the movie's end. As he always does, the brilliant David Hyde Pierce (Frasier) scores the most comic points as Block's fussy editor. --Bret Fetzer

From The New Yorker
A lo-cal attempt at no-sex romantic comedy, a genre that was hardly substantial in the first place. Ewan McGregor plays Catcher Block, a writer for Know magazine in 1962. Renée Zellweger plays Barbara Novak, a mannequin lightly disguised as a best-selling author. The plot stitches them loosely together, as Catcher, the unreconstructed Lothario, tries to force Barbara, the scourge of soft hearts, to fall in love with him. It is hard to divine the purpose behind this pastiche: is the director, Peyton Reed, making sport of the innocent froth that passed for romance in a more innocent era, or is he aiming to revive it as a straight exercise in retro style? Can one simply drop an outdated genre into the laps of modern moviegoers and hope that it still works? The gags wander between the sweet and the unconsciously filthy, and the project's principal appeal will be to devotees of early-sixties hemlines. Indeed, given the blinding array of colors on show, the movie may be viewed most fruitfully under the influence of early-sixties pharmaceuticals. With David Hyde Pierce as Block's editor, who really isn't gay. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Doris and Rock--with a Twist!
"Down with Love" is a little gem of a movie that pays homage to the vintage 60s Doris Day-Rock Hudson films that were considered so witty in their day.

Although director Peyton Reed explains in his excellent commentary (more about that later) that the film was based on a montage of many of the 60s movies, the plot most resembles "Pillow Talk"--and Renee and Ewan are absolutely perfect.

From the clothes to the sets to the photography to the color to the split-screen "talking on the phone" scenes (much more suggestive than the originals!), this perfectly choreographed, beautifully written romp is just a blast, as we would have said back then. There is just enough of a "wink-wink" to let you know that the actors know that YOU know that it's all tongue in cheek"--but even though the satire is broad, it never spoils the fun.

David Hyde-Pierce is superb as the neurotic friend of Ewan (the old Tony Randall role), and Tony Randall himself makes a cameo appearance that is simply the icing on the cake. The acting is a work of art, just right, making everything seem effortless.

But when one watches the director's commentary, one realizes just how tightly each scene was choreographed to achieve that "effortless" look--unlike most DVDs, I found the director's comments actually added to my enjoyment of the movie, and I watched it again after finishing his explanation of how things were done.

All in all, I recommend this movie highly. I truly hope they are successful enough to parody ALL the Doris-Rock movies. I'll be there to watch them if they do!

Books and Boxers
This has to be one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. True, I only went to see it because Ewan McGregor starred, and because I liked Reène ZellWeger in Chicago. But it turned out to be worthwhile from a special screening I previewed. It tells the story of Catcher Block, a male chauvinist who can have any girl he'd like. Enter Barbara Novak, author of a new book that is ruining Catcher's life. Down With Love has practically every woman on strike from relationships, and Catcher is left out in the cold. So, he plots to do the ultimate. Make Barbara fall in love with him. She starts to, and after a while, so does Catcher, the ultimate surprise. This movie was great, and reflected the 60s to perfection, plus some added laughs. Reène is a great co-star for Ewan, almost as good as Nicole Kidman. So, for a perfect date movie, go see Down With Love {though your boyfriend might not appreciate the scenes with Ewan in his boxers}

Dunno what everyone else is smoking...
I saw the theatric release of Down With Love, and I thought it was not only a very good romantic comedy, it was THE romantic comedy. Far too many movies of this genre are bland, w/ terrible acting, and all too familiar of plot lines. So this movie dug back into the beginning of romantic comedies, when the movies hadn't been all warped into a bunch of mindless junk and i think it revived the whole genre. I was very shocked to see the loads of lukewarm and down reviews for this movie, because I greatly enjoyed it.

As you prolly have already heard, this movie pays homage to the Doris Day/Rock Hudson sex comedies of the 60s. It's not a spoof in any way or a remake; it is simply using the components of movies of that time and reviving it. With stars such as Ewan McGregor and David Hyde Pierce this movie is propelled, and without there performances i think this movie wouldn't have been the same.

The plot line is that Catcher Block (Ewan McGregor) is the ladies man, man's man, man about town type of guy, and Renee Zelweger plays Barbara Novak, the feminist author who thinks women should be "Down With Love", not sex, just as men are to get themselves further in the working industry. The book she writes, Down With Love, becomes an international sensation and quickly deteriorates the lives of men, and especially one's like Catcher Block. Block then decides to go under cover and act as the perfect husband material to Novak and prove that all women want love and marriage.

With a plot such as this, a lovely furbished 60's set (practically a flashback, feast for the eyes), and the sexual comic humor (which in my opinion is strangely a more innocent type of comedy) I had a laughing good time.

As I said before the acting was also another vital thing in this movie, and I thought some of the performances were magnificent. Take Ewan McGregor's for example, without his style of portraying that type of egotistical male, even the work of just his facial expressions, the movie would've been a loss. Also David Hyde Pierce's role as a worry-worted boss who's ridiculously failing to be as suave as Block was wonderfully acted. I found almost all the performances absolutely wonderful (i disagree with the comment about "shallow acting") and the only thing I thought could've been better was Zelwiger. In the film she seemed to over-emphasize the comedy, yet her look was ideal for this film. Yet, that is still nothing that hardly tainted this production.

Furthermore this is a must-see film, and it saddens me that so many well respected reviewers gave such poor ratings. The shame of it all is that Fox released it at the worst time possible, on the weekend following the opening of The Matrix. Its initial opening date, April 11th, was for some reason pushed back, and I think if it had been released earlier, it wouldn't have failed at the box office. All I can tell you is that the movie's failure there had nothing to do with the movie itself, but the careless scheduling and promoting of the people at Fox. I thought it was a very entertaining movie, maybe not Oscar material of course, but if you want to see an enjoyable movie at the theaters, then go and get "Down With Love".