DOWN WITH LOVE

A playfully synthetic romantic romp that pays homage to the daffy, nudge-nudge sex comedies of the late ’50s and early ’60s (e.g., Pillow Talk). Renee Zellweger is Barbara Novak, who arrives in Manhattan to publish her sex-and-the-single-girl manifesto. Ewan McGregor, in a wonderfully charming performance, is Catcher Block, ladies’ man and star writer for Know magazine, who decides to allay his secret fear of the aggressive modern female by demonstrating that Barbara’s book is bunk, baby. The movie is little more than an engaging stunt, set in a mad (if not Mad) movie version of 1962, with a resonant glee poised somewhere between Far From Heaven and Airplane!