Review straight from my non-working review weblog.
Down With Love | Peyton Reed | B
Too insincere to be an anachronistic homage a la Guy Maddin, yet too spot-on to be completely parody, Down with Love bestrides some strange middle ground with so much joie de vivre that the film mostly transcends its odd lack of genre. Helps that the '60s -- as portrayed here -- is as entertaining of an era as is era-ly possible, and Reed makes the smart decision to ditch pathos and melancholy amorous longing almost entirely in favor of fun fun fun 'till her Daddy takes the T-Bird away. (Example: Reneé finds Ewan in the arms of another woman. In le typical romantic comedy, Reneé runs away, there is a reconciliation in the final five minutes, and wedding pictures are shown over the credits. Here, Ewan comes up with the lamest excuse possible, Reneé buys into it, and all is temporarily well and happy again. Bien.) Starting worrying about the unnecessary explicitness of the double entendres (a contradiction in terms, yes) at the foolish, Austin Powers-ripoff split-screen scene, and thus I wasn't completely sure about the grade until Reneé's Big Explanatory Monologue, which oh baby was that ingenious. All principals meet the period acting requirements nicely, although Reneé please open your eyes more.
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
i sincerely do not know what you are doing here. are you lost? were you
looking for your delicate calico cat, and did you follow her up two flights of stairs
to this room? she is not here. she was here, yes. we gave her a warm bowl of milk, we talked with her about campaign finance reform for a time, and then she bid us good day. i believe she was
going to the post office two blocks down, but i don't quite recall.
for surely you did
not find your way from prinsiana, the least traveled site on
the internet. if you did, though, perhaps you are looking for humor. perhaps you are looking for profundity. perhaps you are looking for answers.
i'm sorry, but you shall go naught-for-three.
