Wednesday, October 16, 2013

At the Movies: Down With Love

From the very first time that I saw Doris Day and Rock Hudson share screen time I have adored the duo's movies. My favourite being Pillow Talk so when I saw 'Down with Love', a romantic comedy that pays homage to the early 1960's sex comedies I knew I would adore it!

Renee Zellweger plays Doris Day Barbara Novak an author from Maine who has just arrived in Manhattan to promote her book 'Down With Love' a self help book to free women from love, teach them to enjoy sex without commitment, and to replace the need for a man with things such as chocolate. Following her rules would, she believes, help to give women a boost in the workplace and in the world in general.

Ewan McGregor plays Catcher Block a 'mans man, ladies man and man around town' who is a successful writer at Know Magazine.

In order to publicize her book Barbara's agent attempts to set up an interview between Barbara and Catcher but Catcher cancels on multiple occasions as he is entertaining various young ladies each time fobbing Barbara off with a different excuse. When Barbara overhears to flight attendants say they both went on dates with Catcher the day before Barbara vows never to talk to her again.

Barbara's book becomes a worldwide sensation after Judy Garland sings a song about it on the Ed Sullivan show. Catcher seeing the sensation that the book has become tries to arrange an interview with Barbara but she refuses and when she appears on TV talking about a chapter in her book entitled 'the worst kind of man' and names Catcher Block as just this type of man Catcher loses his cool and vows to expose her.

Catcher organises a chance meeting at a launderette and introduces himself as Zip Martin, an astronaut who has no idea who Barbara is. Cue a cute montage of their 29 dates in 23 days. So will Catcher/Zip expose Barbara as a woman looking for love or does Barbara have a secret of her own?

Down with Love is a fun frivolous romantic comedy that has all the kitsch and cuteness of the original movies of the genre with some tongue in cheek innuendo that tips its hat to movies such as Pillow Talk and Sex and the Single Girl. I adored everything about this movie from the cast to the sets and definitely the costumes. I will leave you with some of the best outfits from the movie:

2 comments:

  1. I loved this film! Great frocks!
    Very Doris Day, a long time idol of mine. :)

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    1. It is a fantastic movie and the clothes are awesome! x

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