Ethan Switch - Monday, 18 August, 2003 - Print Version
Time was kind and the decision to see a movie ended up at the cinema looking at the options. There was the thought of Bad Eggs but that felt like a comedy too serious to enjoy past the hard and earnest voice overs of comedian Tony Martin in the trailers. The Castle was in form but disguised in an oily packet from Take Away. The box office had signs up all over the place about the R+ rating of Narc. A ploy they use to look responsible while selling tickets to the school children. If anything, Down With Love was screaming out as the best option so a ticket was exchanged for a pass and I made my way toward one of the smaller theatres. This was despite the fact that it was only three days after the initial release.
The theatre had no more than ten people already in the dark watching the trailers. But on half a screen. The projection was knocked up and only the bottom half was visible. Yet no one in the crowd said a thing or even thought it askew. Seconds passed before I stormed out looking for one of the few ushers walking around. Thinking that it might have passed in the time I walked out, I stepped back in only to be confronted by a middle-aged man asking whether or not I'd seen someone about the screen. Despite telling him I was on my way and finding a guy with a vest and walkie talkie, he still walked behind me, albeit rather slow, just in case.
Nobody was under the age of 29 and to this I knew the kind of audience the film was speaking to. Those that were in a mind of love for films back in the 60s like Doris Day and Rock Hudson's Pillow Talk. A period when innuendo was mixed cunningly with an sophisticated innocence to escape the perverted minds and eyes of the censorboard jacking off to the cut of Elvis' jaw.
Hell, I think in parts it might have been an homage to Pillow Talk or at least a mention of the film.
Opening the film are gloriously playful titles by Asylum mixed with the title song of the soundtrack. The mood and style was setting itself up for some "old fashioned" style. Upbeat and fun.
And from a sea of drab, novelist Barbara Novak (Renée Zellweger) enters and the movie winds into gear. It doesn't really crank up until journalist Catcher Block (Ewan MacGregor) enters the fray and the snappy repartee between the two ensues. David Hyde Pierce is a delight playing the neurotic publisher of Know Magazine, where Block works and is the star reporter playboy, Peter MacManus. The dialogue is fast and peppered with wit and innuendo. The camera work focuses on the characters to help deliver this and the costumes and sets are vividly bold and representative of the characters' personalities.
For some reason I thought that MacGregor and Zellweger might break out into song and dance like Rogers and Astaire, but they save that for the end credits. I can't remember if the orchestra ever stopped playing, or took a pause and I'm glad they didn't or I didn't.
I was the only one left in the cinema when the film finished but certainly not the only one to laugh and love it.
PEYTON REED reads KNOW Magazine and drinks TANG, the drink of astronauts.
Finagle with our bagel and keep a fresh and up-to-date eyeball on our latest reviews, articles and filthy somesuch. Mmm doughy.
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