by Sun Meilan

Created on: December 02, 2009

In the 1960s, Barbara Novak is a best-selling author of a book called Down With Love, which explains to women how they can get by in life without a man, except for casual sex. Journalist Catcher Block is a lothario who is dying to prove her wrong. However, by alienating Barbara before he's even met her, Cather puts his chances of an interview into disarray. And then he sees a life-size photo of Barbara and realising that she is far from being the old spinster that he expected her to be, decides that he would like to make a play for her instead. Aided by his editor, Peter MacMannus, he puts his best foot forward. Will Barbara see through him and prove that men really are a waste of time? Or will she fall for his manly charms?

Based on the Doris Day and Rock Hudson so-called sex comedies of the 1960s, this film is a real mixture of beautiful clothes, smarmy men, self-righteous women, big band music and a glamorous setting. As an occasional fan of such films, I hoped that this was going to be more appealing that the average rom com these days, of which I am absolutely not a fan. Renee Zellweger stars as Barbara Novak, which initially gave me hope - on the whole, I enjoy Zellweger's kooky comedy. She certainly looks amazing, dressed in some beautiful two piece suits and evening gowns. And her over-exaggerated facial expressions are very reminiscent of Doris Day. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough depth to her character to make her likeable; in fact the way the script is written, she is really quite annoying and I just couldn't warm to her. I'm not sure how much of it is her fault and how much the scriptwriter, but after half an hour, I was bored of Barbara Novak and her self-righteousness.

Ewan McGregor is an actor I have a certain amount of respect for - certainly I loved him in Shallow Grave and Trainspotting, and to an extent in Little Voice and Moulin Rouge! In some ways, this film is a natural progression for him - there's plenty of dancing and singing during the credits at least. However, I found his performance as Catcher Block irritating at best and bland at worst. The attempt to make him look the part flopped as far as I'm concerned; he just looked a bit daft and not at all dashing, as I'm sure he was supposed to look. I definitely couldn't summon up the enthusiasm to hope that he ended up with Barbara, which, as that is the premise of the whole film, means that it flopped somewhat for me.

On a more positive note is David Hyde Pierce (better known as

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