Down with Love - To the devil with love!
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Down with Love - To the devil with love! |
| Original title | Down with love |
| Country of production | USA , Germany , Switzerland |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 2003 |
| length | 101 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 0 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Peyton Reed |
| script |
Eve Ahlert , Dennis Drake |
| production |
Bruce Cohen , Dan Jinks |
| music | Marc Shaiman |
| camera | Jeff Cronenweth |
| cut | Larry Bock |
| occupation | |
| |
Down with Love - To the devil with love! (Original title: Down with Love ) is a love comedy by the director Peyton Reed from 2003 with Renée Zellweger and Ewan McGregor in the leading roles.
action
The setting is New York in 1962. This is where the young author Barbara Novak comes from rural Maine to publish her book "Down With Love". In it she advocates the thesis that women can only become independent if they break the habit of love. But the conservative gentlemen of the publishing board of "Banner House" refuse to publish this book. That's why Barbara and her editor Vikki fight for “Down With Love”. They do this so successfully that the New York women show solidarity through this book as a medium and renounce the rule of their husbands. Even the gentlemen from the board of directors of the publishing house are not immune from this. After all, “Down With Love” begins a worldwide triumph.
The journalist and undisputed womanizer Catcher Block - "swarm of women, swarm of men, swarm of the whole city" - does not want to be offered the success of a book that is completely contrary to his way of life and strikes back. Disguised as a shy astronaut Zip, he wants to stalk Barbara in order to prove that she is also susceptible to love and thus refute Barbara's theses. He believes that with this ruse he can once again prove himself to be a brilliant journalist and hopes to win another Pulitzer Prize in this way . His success with Barbara even seems to prove him right, because as much as she defends herself against Catcher's advances, a romantic involvement is inevitable.
Ultimately, however, it turns out that Barbara Novak also played a double game. In truth, she is Nancy Brown, who was Catcher's secretary for three and a half weeks a year earlier and was transferred by him on several dates. She had written her book only to get Catcher to fall in love with her through his own efforts. In the meantime, however, she realized that in the course of time she had become the woman she was actually just playing and founded her own publishing house. Only after some effort does she and Catcher find each other and get married.
background
The film was staged entirely in the style of the successful 1960s films with Doris Day and Rock Hudson (e.g. bed whispers ) and can be seen as an homage to this film series. He imitates "with loving precision and overdrawing with malicious lust the Doris Day / Rock Hudson comedy vehicles of the 1960s," writes Catherine Newmark for the Berliner Zeitung .
The plot is based on the classic elements of these films, which are completely taken over, caricatured and taken to extremes:
- The female lead (Day / Zellweger) falls in love with the heartthrob (Hudson / McGregor).
- Actually, both of them hate each other.
- He plays the innocent and nice fellows for her to win her heart.
- The neurotic friend (Randall / Hyde Pierce) of the male lead also tries to assert himself.
Particularly noteworthy are the furnishings of the respective residential units, which with their pomp, their technical equipment and their size appear extremely generous even for today's conditions. Likewise, the clothes, which have been modeled really well and contribute a lot to capture the naive mood and the social development of the early 1960s.
Tony Randall , always third in the League Day / Hudson, also appears in a supporting role.
criticism
"A romantic comedy that pays homage to the 1960s with candy colors and an exaggerated ambience , which with its flat iconography and unsuccessful timing achieves neither the charm nor the comedy of the desired screwball comedies."
“Both Ewan McGregor and Renée Zellweger do great things in this nice and entertaining comedy. Above all, the exaggerated 60s style gives the film its own, beautiful, flair. "
“'Down with Love' is a wonderful homage to the golden age of the classic Doris Day - Rock-Hudson comedy: In the technicolor retro look of the" post-modern "comedy of the sixties, Peyton Reed (" Girls United " ) Reneé Zellweger and Ewan McGregor as the new unequal dream couple of the present [...] "
Awards
The German Film and Media Assessment FBW gave the film the rating of particularly valuable.
The film was nominated for the Online Film Critics Society Award in two categories.
Web links
- Down with Love - To the devil with love! in theInternet Movie Database(English)
- Down with Love - To the devil with love! atRotten Tomatoes(English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Release certificate for Down with Love - To hell with love! Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , August 2003 (PDF; test number: 94 870 K).
- ↑ a b Catherine Newmark: "Down with Love" celebrates and satirizes the comedies of the 60s with relish: And at the end a turning point. In: berliner-zeitung.de. December 24, 2003, accessed March 18, 2018 .
- ^ A b Daniel Haas: Sixties comedy "Down With Love": Colorful trip through the Doris Day Museum. In: Spiegel Online . December 25, 2003, accessed March 18, 2018 .
- ↑ Anke Gröner: Down with Love. In: ankegroener.de. February 23, 2004, accessed March 18, 2018 .
- ↑ Down with Love. In: tagblatt.de. November 24, 2015, accessed March 18, 2018 .
- ↑ Down with Love - To the devil with love! In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed August 4, 2016 .
- ↑ Down with Love - To the devil with love! on moviemaze.de ( Memento from September 5, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )