First, this film doesn't draw solely from "Pillow Talk." It draws from the Hudson-Day "Lover Come Back" as well. The sets, costumes, music, and cinematography are all first rate, truly remarkable and wonderful. I believe there was a casting mishap, though. While Renee Zellweger has her charm, she is no Doris Day. Doris was beautiful while Renee could be called, at a stretch, "cute." She just has an unfortunate puffy face which does not add to her allure. Further, Doris had that ramrod character inside of her, which the audience could clearly see and believe, when she was steeling herself for something, and Renee just doesn't have that. Renee always seems, with her little-girl voice, like a dandelion waiting to be blown away by the wind. Who would believe her as a cutthroat businesswoman in New York City? Not this member of the audience! In her movies, Doris wore only one hat that bore any resemblance at all to the ever-more-ridiculous hats Renee wore in this film. Mostly, Doris went hat-less. That scene where Renee and Sarah Paulson, her galfriend, sit down to eat at a swank restaurant and leave their rigid, molded-to-the-head black hats on while dining is definitely not true-to-life. I was there in '63, and women rarely wore hats then (unlike the '50s), and when they did, they took them off for dining! It was considered to be polite to do so. Ewan McGregor is such a poor substitute for the huge, handsome, charming and comedically talented Rock Hudson that I don't know where to begin. Just on a physical level, Ewan is small, has a thick Scottish burr, and his face is covered in moles and wens. Ick! Rock was 6'4" (or was it 6'5"?), strongly built, and his face was flawlessly beautiful, with sensitive eyes. In Ewan's performance, how I missed that "twinkle-in-the-eye" that Rock had! Ewan didn't get me to smile, even once. Your other reviewer talked about "those types of films prevalent in those times." No, romantic comedies were NOT prevalent "in those times," in fact. Just going by the Academy Award winners alone, you had "Lawrence of Arabia," "To Kill a Mockingbird," "Sweet Bird of Youth," "the Miracle Worker," and "What Ever Happened To Baby Jane" in 1962, and in 1963, you had "Tom Jones," "Lilies of the Field," "Hud," "How the West Was Won," and "Cleopatra," among others. Do you see a romantic-comedy trend here? No. Because there wasn't one. No one type of film was "prevalent" in the early '60s. Your previous reviewer erred, also, in stating that a character in this movie who referred to "the Farmer's Daughter" was referring, "of course," to Debbie Reynolds, a "pop icon of the '60s." Well, let's see....hmmmm... First, the only person who played "the farmer's daughter" in the '60s was Inger Stevens, who played the role on TV in the series of that name in 1963. Before that, Loretta Young played the role in a movie of that name in 1947. But Debbie Reynolds? Never. Debbie was also, unhappily, not an icon of the '60s (although she was still incontrovertibly famous and working as a lead actress). And when Ewan's character says he's an astronaut from Cocoa Beach, Florida, this is not necessarily from "I Dream of Jeannie." In the fantastic Hudson-Day "Lover Come Back," Rock's character tells Doris' character that every time he looks up in the sky, he thinks of his cousin SoandSo, who is circling the earth every xyzxyz seconds, which much impresses Doris. In fact, as a child of the '60s, I remember THAT much more than I remember the inferior "I Dream of Jeannie." David Hyde Pierce, as the Tony Randall character (Ewan's wealthy employer) does a 100% perfect job in the role. There is simply no improving on it. He is perfect, witty, adorable, neurotic, funny, and starchy -- all characteristics required of this character. Given their physical limitations, both Renee and Ewan, one can see, certainly acted, sang, and danced the hell out of these roles and did probably the best that any contemporary actors could do. They got the roles 85% right, which ain't bad. So kudos to them. I just wish the casting director had chosen leads more cinematically appealing than Renee and Ewan. "[Ewan] adds to his mystique." WHAT "mystique"? I am a female who very much likes male eye candy, and I did not discern any appreciable "mystique" being displayed by Ewan. Some, but very little. She (the casting director) hit the ball far, but didn't knock it out of the park, as they say. Again, perfect, absolutely perfect set design, costume design, and music. Could not have been better. I'm not sure that as a viewer, I really came to care about the two lead characters, who seemed, in the way they were written, to be cartoon characters. Actually, I DID care about David Hyde Pierce's character, but all the others, no. I did not believe them one moment. So that takes away immensely from the enjoyment of the film. All in all, it was a visual and aural delight, very light-hearted, a triumph of form over content. The plot seemed extremely contrived and unbelievable, unlike the Hudson-Day movies. Renee's character suggests in her book that women sublimate their sexual or emotional desires by eating chocolate. Oh, and by eating chocolate, women are supposed to end up looking like the reed-thin Renee? Hah! Who would believe that? Even in 1963, women weren't that stupid! Don't expect laughs that are character-driven or plot-driven. Just dig into the visual and aural delights, of which there are many.
Review of Down with Love
