Down With Love was pretty fun to watch. The costumes were stunning, each character dressed like a sixties supermodel. The sets were colorful and creative like the best of sixties print advertising and interior design magazines. They even did a great job of melding the actors into New York streets of the sixties. [There were a few anachronisms, such as the fact that the Pan Am building wasn't completed at the time the film takes place, but accuracy was forsaken in an effort to get the "feel" of a 60's movie right-- Editor]

Then there was the story. The story was cute. Nothing epic, mind you, just a cute romantic comedy that somewhere along the way turned utterly ridiculous.

Down With Love is about author Barbara Novak (Renee Zellweger), and her new feminist book, Down With Love. Down With Love (the book, not the movie) is about the goal women should strive for to have more power and success in the workplace, namely by not having feelings of love. Barbara has turned the path to this goal into a step-by-step process that sweeps the nation, making her book an instant best-seller, with the help of her editor and friend, Vikki Hiller (Sarah Paulson).

Down With Love (the movie, not the book) is also about swanky, smooth ladies-man Catcher Block (Ewan McGregor), a writer for New York’s most successful men’s magazine, Know. Catcher is a ladies man who is assigned to write a cover story about the future bestselling author by his editor and best friend, Peter MacMannus (David Hyde Pierce).

Unfortunately for Catcher Block, he is under the impression that the author Barbara Novak is a mousy spinster from Maine, and he just can’t work her into his schedule. He’s all booked up entertaining flight attendants today.

Catcher eventually sees a picture of Barbara and decides he MUST do the interview. When she refuses (by this point he had stood her up many times), he decides to do an expose instead, proving that Barbara Novak isn’t a Down With Love (the book, not the movie), kind of girl. Barbara has never seen Catcher Block, so he takes on an alternate persona and becomes Major Zip Martin, the kind of man man-hating Barbara won’t be able to resist.

If I haven’t made it clear enough up until now, this movie is REALLY silly. It aptly captures the wacky style of sixties romantic comedies, from everyone’s stylish entrances to the split screen phone conversations. It is full of sexual references, and I mean references. This movie could be a training film for the use of the double entendre. The sexual tension is enormous, and the way it was handled in the film made me laugh out loud several times.

It’s obvious throughout the movie that the feminist and the ladies-man are going to fall for each other. The ending, however, is not so obvious and did put an additional ridiculous, silly twist on the whole story. I’m not going to tell because you should really watch it without knowing. It’s much funnier that way.

While I am adamant that this movie was a silly but effective homage to the sixties romantic comedy, I have to say that the actors were brilliant. I don’t think I would have enjoyed it so much without the quirkiness of Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor’s intensity. The supporting actors were just as spectacular, Sarah Paulson was a perfect “Down With Love” wannabe and David Hyde Pierce was so funny and uptight that he came close to stealing the scene on several occasions. Down With Love (the movie, not the book) was simply fun to watch.