GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE May 23, 2003

eveningsout

Cast has a ball in this Doris Day-Rock Hudson takeoff

by Kaizaad Kotwal

Down With Love, the latest film from out producers Bruce Coen and Dan Jinks (American Beauty), is a fabulously florid piece of retro cinema which is much more intelligent than most will give it credit for.

A take-off on the Rock Hudson and Doris Day romantic comedies, the film stars the talented Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor as their modern-day counterparts. Down with Love is strongly indebted to Pillow Talk (1959) and Lover Come Back (1961), starring Day. Hudson and Tony Randall, who has a small cameo in this movie.

This film tells the story of Barbara Novak (Zellweger), a small-town, wide-eyed gal who ends up in Manhattan because her book is about to be published. The book Down With Love is a how-to tome on the empowerment and emancipation of women in a maledominated world. Her plan embraces three little steps that women can perfect to attain equality in both the bedroom and the board-

room.

Novak's conceit is that women need to treat sex just as men do, i.e. casually and as a means to an end. She also argues that chocolate is a worthy substitute for sex. (It's annoying to watch as she substitutes chocolate for sex and still stays a size zero.)

Novak meets her foil in Catcher Block (McGregor), playboy star reporter for Know magazine. Block can't understand why he needs to give any credence to Novak, but when the book becomes an overnight sensation and Block's womanizing is stopped because his flings have picked it up, he tries to find out what is behind this mysterious author.

Block tries to prove Novak a fraud who only wants love and marriage. As in the

Hudson-Day films, Block creates a fake persona, that of Major Zip Martin, a farm-boy turned astronaut who tries to seduce Novak. Martin is the antithesis of Block, a nerdy, sensitive, naive country yokel who can't fathom the idea of getting to know a gal “all the way well" before marriage.

While the film is predictable in that Novak falls for Zip and Block falls for Novak, it is ultimately she who has a few tricks up her sleeve. It is with elements like this that Down With Love is more than simply a recreation of gooey love tales form the 1960s starring a wide-eyed ingenue and her hunky costar.

While this film is retro like last year's Far From Heaven, made by out writer and director Todd Haynes, both these films are much more intelligent than average audiences will give them credit for.

Director Peyton Reed (Bring It On) has created a fast-paced, energetic film that is funny from the get go. In fact, the opening credits, which use old-style animation in colorful and playful ways, is one of the film's strongest suits.

The Day-Hudson films, like many others of that time, were basically sex farces where no sex was seen or even described. It was all done in innuendo, code, and subtle subversion. Reed's film takes the subversion to another level, but he never loses the playfulness or the tongue-in-cheek nature of the story and characters in his film.

What could never have been shown (even as innuendo) in the 1960s is whimsically and cleverly done here, and yet it is never vulgar or gratuitous.

There is a side plot involving a burgeoning love between Novak's editor (Sarah Paulson) and Block's editor Peter MacMannus (David Hyde Pierce). Paulson is funny, sassy and fun to watch and Hyde

Pierce, playing sexually ambiguous again (like on TVs Frasier) is hysterical.

Unlike the '60s films where gayness was taboo, Paulson's character calls MacMannus on his homosexuality. There is a great scene between Block and MacMannus that is laced with homoerotic tension using a sultry towel-clad Block sucking on lush olives with his shirt buttons popping into MacMannus's martini. That the film embraces the poten-

tial homosexuality of the David Hyde Pierce and Ewan McGregor film's male sidekick is one of the reasons why it rises above

a simple genre parody.

The overall design of the scene has a very gay and flamboyant sensibility, which in itself is a nudge and a wink to the repressive and codified sexuality of 1960s Hollywood. The costume design by out designer Daniel Orlandi is Oscar-worthy. He has created a parade of costumes which are themselves characters in this comedy of errors.

The film deals with a sense of innocence that left celluloid a long time ago. Today's more jaded and cynical audiences may find themselves snickering at the seeming simplicity of an era when falling in love on screen meant seeing stars and rainbows, not digitally-airbrushed genitals.

The pièce de résistance of the film though is a one-shot, five-minute monologue that Novak delivers towards the end of the movie, which is genius both from the screenwriter and Zellweger.

Zellweger moves beautifully though the film, and the same body language that made her Roxy in Chicago so superb is used here

to great effect, especially given the fabulous wardrobe she carries on her shoulders.

McGregor is once again fantastic to watch, proving once again that he is probably one of the most versatile actors around. He too uses his body beautifully with he swagger of Rock Hudson and the sexual tension of Cary Grant or Montgomery Clift.

The actors begged the producers and director to allow them to do a song and dance number, like many of the 1960s musicals, to show over the closing credits.

The payoff is brilliant as McGregor and Zellweger (both movie musical pros by now with Moulin Rouge and Chicago respectively) sing and dance with verve and vivacity. It is obvious that Zellwegger, McGregor and the cast are having a ball every frame of the film.

So even if you are a down-with-love kinda gal or guy, you'll still love the film. In a summer season with testosterone flying off the screen, go watch some estrogen kick some butt,

pationa pal

Stiva

29th Annual

National Women's Music Festival

June 5-8, 2003 Moving to...

Kent State University, Kent, Ohio

Mainstage Performances

Thurs, June 5: Alix Olson, Tret Fure, Deidre McCalla, Jamie Anderson and the Barely Butch Band

Fri, June 6: All Choral Mainstage: SheWho, Grand Rapids

Women's Chorus,

Indianapolis Women's Chorus

NEW!

Sat, June 7: Vocolot, Wishing Chair and Kara Barnard, Melissa Ferrick, Zrazy

Spotlight Artist's Stage Fri, June 6:

Lucie Blue Tremblay Spotlight Artist of the Year

and introducing Ellen Keyt, Doria Roberts

Comedy Concert

Sun, June 8:

Open mic finalists; NWMF DrumChorus; and comedians Sabrina Matthews, Marga Gomez, and Georgia Ragsdale.

A four-day

women's music and culture extravaganza

that tries to incorporate all

facets of women's lives.

SheRocks Special Announcement!

If you like it wild, energetic, untamed, and intense, this stage is for you! Fri, June 6:

Tribe 8, the hissyfits, Ember Swift, Sabrina Matthews, Kim Archer

Women's Health series guest speaker: Merryl Sloane

Spirituality Guest Speakers: Jade, Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, Willow LaMonte

For more information:

www.wiaonline.org/nwmf wia@wiaonline.org 317-927-9355

Fax: 317-585-9448 NWMF, P.O. Box 1427, Indianapolis, IN 46206-1427

HIS

KINGS Presented by

The H.I.S. King Show!

Sat, June 7: Under the

auspices of The Discovery Channel and Alliance AtlanFAST FRIGHT PRODUCTIONS tis (recent Academy Award FRIDAY

winners: Bowling for Columbine), a film crew will be filming this performance, as part of their creation of a cinema road movie in the spirit of Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. So plan to attend and enjoy the first ever drag king show at NWMF, and at the same time be part of a landmark documentary that explores current attitudes about sex, gender, family, and identity politics!

Women In The Arts

In all programs, WIA:

a. Strives to reflect the diversity and multicultural reality of the women's community in regard to race, age, physical ability, and sexual orientation.

b. Actively reaches out to reflect this diversity in its workers, participants, performers; and presenters.