Down with Love (2003)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Romantic Comedy	Main Menu Introduction Main Menu Audio Audio Commentary-Peyton Reed (Director) Featurette-Here's To Love Deleted Scenes-5, With Optional Commentary Featurette-Guess My Game Featurette-Hair And Wardrobe Tests Outtakes Featurette-6 Featurette-Making Of-HBO Special Featurette-Down With Love Testimonial Trailer-Music Promo Spot
Rating
Year Of Production	2003
Running Time	97:27
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (40:22)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Peyton Reed
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Renée Zellweger Ewan McGregor Sarah Paulson David Hyde Pierce Rachel Dratch Jack Plotnick Tony Randall John Aylward Warren Munson Matt Ross Michael Ensign Timothy Omundson Jeri Ryan
Case	?
RPI	$36.95	Music	Marc Shaiman

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.40:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired Danish Finnish Icelandic Norwegian Swedish English Audio Commentary	Smoking	Yes, lots
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, musical number in closing credits

    Down With Love has been reviewed previously on this site, and a fine plot synopsis can be found just about here. For those who have a broken left mouse button, I will provide a brief synopsis below, along with my impressions of the movie.

    If you can remember those old "bedroom comedies" - typified by the collaborations between Doris Day and Rock Hudson (Pillow Talk, Lover Come Back and Send Me No Flowers, which are reviewed here) - then you will immediately know what to expect from this film. Barbara Novak (Renée Zellweger) is a debutante novelist,who has created the titular book exhorting women to abstain from falling in love and to take control of their lives in order to find...equality with men (gasp!). Her immediate overnight success brings her into conflict with one Catcher Block (Ewan McGregor) - a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist for the popular men's magazine Know. He is a ladies man, a man's man and a self-made man. He is James Bond, Hugh Heffner and Simon Templar rolled into one. As the women of the world begin to shake off their servitude to men, Catcher sees it as his role to expose Novak as no more than a love-lorn woman, who just needs the love of a man to make her life truly worthwhile.

    Of course, what follows is a typical bedroom farce with good-natured subterfuge the order of the day. Will Barbara outsmart the wily Catcher Block and remain true to her girl-power mantra? Will Catcher use his considerable charm to woo the neo-feminist into his remote-controlled bed? Will they end up falling in love? Answers on a postcard to: Stating the Obvious Competition, MichaelDVD, The Internet.

    The cinematography in this movie is excellent. Very clever split-screen effects, painted canvas backdrops, stock footage and extensive CGI merge seamlessly (other than where intended) to provide a totally credible recreation of the hyper-real CinemaScope world of the early 1960s films. The set and costume design are Oscar-worthy. Every larger-than-life outfit positively leaps from the screen, with the men looking uniformly suave and the ladies frequently stunning in vivid primary colours and outrageous matching coats and hats galore.

    The acting is d*** near flawless. Zellweger and McGregor are spot-on in the lead roles (and they certainly show plenty of chemistry). The two leads even manage to squeeze an accomplished song and dance routine into the picture - once again acquitting themselves well. They are supported admirably by a wittily cast Tony Randall (who appeared in each of the original Hudson/Day films) and a type-cast David Hyde Pierce (Frasier). The corny dialogue is delivered with verve and the farcical set-ups ooze Sixties style from every single frame. The over-orchestrated (but appropriate) score never lets up, and if you close your eyes, you could believe you are listening to one of the original movies from which this draws inspiration.

    However, there is surely a reason "they don't make 'em like this anymore". That reason might be one of the following: the dialogue is corny, the humour is dated or that the basic plot is so unrepresentative of modern living that it just looks contrived. This doesn't make this a bad film, but it does limit its relevance to a modern cinema-going public. This film is in fact extremely well made - the costume and set design is flawless, the colours are magic, the evocation of a previous generation is spot-on. Like The Brady Bunch movies, for me at least, the film serves as nothing more than a technically proficient throwback. I admire the craft of this film tremendously; it is technically wonderful and director Peyton Reed (Bring It On) is to be commended for his attention to detail throughout. Sadly, I didn't actually get that much enjoyment from it...and isn't that what it's all supposed to be about? For fans of the Doris Day and Rock Hudson bedroom comedy genre, this will be a wonderful treat. To the rest of us, it is a curiosity worth applauding for its masterful recreation of the films of the 1960s - but is ultimately unsatisfying. Recommended for Day/Hudson fans and those who wish to see a clever recreation of a passé film genre that passed its expiry date around forty years ago.

Video

    The video quality of this transfer is very good. The only minor issues I had with the transfer was a tendency towards a slight over-softness, and occasionally limited brightness.

    The video is presented 16x9 enhanced at (a measured ratio of) 2.40:1 which is apparently slightly wider than the original theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1. The subtle softness in the transfer is likely to be intentional to add to the "dated" feel of the flick.

    I'm not sure if the luminance of the transfer is deliberately "subdued", but there does seem to be a tendency to have slightly limited contrast in the film. I found that with my projector on its standard picture settings, the film sometimes looked a little too gloomy - not annoyingly, but certainly noticeably so. Black levels are deep and uniformly solid with no hint of low level noise and shadow detail is generally fine. Colours are extremely well rendered throughout, with a vibrant palette making full use of primary colours, particularly in the marvellous costumes and neon signs which crop up in the montage scenes. Skin tones look a little oversaturated at times, but I suspect that this is intentional as it would be typical of original films of the period.

    I noticed no major MPEG compression artefacts in the transfer. There was the occasional instance of edge enhancement (for example around the cape at 16:56, around Randall's shoulders at 61:15 and particularly during the dance routine in the closing credits), but even on a 92 inch screen I did not find it overly annoying. I have a progressive scan system and found aliasing to be non-existent during the main feature. Telecine wobble is not an issue.

    Film artefacts are absent from this very clean transfer.

    There are a range of subtitles on offer. I watched the English (for the Hearing Impaired) version briefly and found them to be legible, accurate (albeit with some minor truncation) and well timed. There are some detailed audio cues present for the various sound effects.

    This disc is single sided and dual layered (RSDL) with the extremely well-placed layer change cropping up very briefly at 40:22, just as Hyde Pierce peeps over his menu at the restaurant. It is so brief and well placed that is is very hard to spot on casual viewing.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The overall audio transfer is technically good, with a sporadically enveloping feel to it.

    The main English audio track is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 encoded at 448 kbps. There is nothing evident in the way of hiss, clicks or audio dropouts. The dialogue is very cleanly transmitted, and well anchored in the front soundstage. I didn't notice any significant issues with the audio sync.

    The music is used almost non-stop throughout the film, in what feels like a very dated (and deliberately so) score. The score is provided by Marc Shaiman (Misery, Patch Adams) and he has done a remarkable job in recreating the audio feel of films from that period. Personally I found the omnipresent score to be somewhat over-used, and occasionally too intrusive, but this is a matter of taste - and is certainly in keeping with the Day/Hudson films.

    The front soundstage is pleasantly balanced with the dialogue nicely anchored in the centre channel. The main front speakers are kept busy with the musical score from start to finish and provide some decent stereo separation.

    The surround speakers are mainly used to support the musical score, with little in the way on significant directional or localised effects. There is some occasional ambience other than the score (traffic noise and background chatter in restaurants), but in general the surrounds are there for the musical support (which is occasionally rousing).

    The subwoofer is used throughout to support the music - particularly the frequent use of double bass in the score. There is little in the way of true LFE sound, but the helicopter scenes and occasional door slams do see it used more aggressively on occasion.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    There are heaps of extras on offer.

Menu

    The main menu is a delightfully kitsch effort, and it evokes the feel of the film instantly (as do the marvellous cartoon opening titles). It allows the options of playing the movie, activating subtitles, choosing one of twenty-eight chapter stops and access to the following extra features:

Commentary Track

    Director Peyton Reed provides a non-stop and fairly interesting commentary track. It is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 encoded at 192 kbps and has optional subtitles available.

Here's To Love

    Presented at 1.33:1 with a Dolby Digital 2.0 audio track encoded at 192 kbps, this is the closing song performed by McGregor and Zellweger. I suspect it was shot on video and has some fairly horrible aliasing/interlacing present. It runs for 3:34.

Deleted Scenes

    These scenes can be played individually, or via a "Play All" selection. There are subtitles available for each of them. They are all presented letterboxed and with a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack encoded at 192 kbps:

• Barbara's Photo Shoot (0:20)
• Vikki Pitches Books (0:34)
• Central Park (1:53)
• Vikki and Peter Prepare for the Big Night (0:37)
• Beauty Parlour (0:24)

Guess My Game

    The quiz show section from the movie, running for 1:12 and presented at 1.33:1 with a Dolby Digital 2.0 audio track encoded at 192 kbps.

Hair and Wardrobe Tests

Blooper Reel

Documentaries

• On Location (2:41)
• Creating the World (3:08)
• Costumes (2:35)
• The Swingin' Sounds (2:54)
• Up with Tony Randall (2:00)
• Split Decisions (3:07)

HBO Special

    Tedious EPK fluff running for 12:36. It is presented at 1.33:1 with letterboxed film inserts and a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack encoded at 192 kbps.

Testimonial

    A spoof 60s testimonial for Novak's novel. Presented at 1.33:1 with a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack encoded at 224 kbps this runs for 0:36.

Music Promo Spot

    Presented at 1.33:1 with a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack encoded at 192 kbps this runs for 0:34 and encourages you to buy the soundtrack CD.

    The Region 1 release of this film appears to be the same as this Region 4 sell-through release. Buy whichever is cheaper.

    Hmmm, this is a difficult film to score. Should artistic merit and technical competence outweigh the ultimate entertainment value? Down With Love is a very well executed homage to the bedroom comedies of Rock Hudson and Doris Day. The cinematography, set and costume design, corny dialogue, sexual innuendo, montage scenes and quirky musical numbers are all flawless. However, just because something can be done, doesn't mean that it should be done...like Hudson's character by the end of each of those films - this style of movie has had its Day. Recommended for your Granny.

    The video quality is very good, with some wonderful cinematography and use of colour in the film.

    The audio transfer is technically good with a snug fitting score.

    The extras are quite extensive, and will provide some additional value for fans of the movie.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall