Taglines: A new comedy about giving first love a second chance.
This Big Apple-based romantic comedy charts the tumultuous relationship between liberal arts student and budding chef Al (Freddie Prinze Jr.) and his first girlfriend, Imogen (Julia Stiles), a self-possessed freshman who wants to become an artist. After meeting in a bar, the pair jump into a giddy, passionate affair that’s grown-up enough to include face time between the young lovers and Al’s DJ mom and TV-chef dad (Henry Winkler).
After a summer abroad, however, Imogen feels like the relationship is robbing her of her youth, and the couple must struggle with romantic and domestic growing pains. Meanwhile, their wacky friends — who include porn stars (Selma Blair and Zak Orth), stoners (Rosario Dawson), a mullet-haired lunkhead (Shawn Hatosy), and a Jim Morrison look-alike named Jim Morrison (Ashton Kutcher) — provide laughs, advice, and sexual temptation.
Down to You is a 2000 American romantic comedy film about losing a first love. It was directed by Kris Isacsson. The main characters are Alfred ‘Al’ Connelly (played by Freddie Prinze, Jr.), Imogen (Julia Stiles), and Cyrus (Selma Blair). The cast also includes Shawn Hatosy, Ashton Kutcher, Rosario Dawson, Lucie Arnaz, Henry Winkler, and Zak Orth.
Film Review for Down to You
Extremely good-looking people tend to be shallow, self-involved and not very bright. Let’s call this statement what it is: a form of prejudice, a stereotype. It is, sadly, a stereotype that ”Down to You” does everything in its power to promote. The film’s stars, Freddie Prinze Jr. and Julia Stiles, are wonderful to look at: their dimples match beautifully, their bodies move with effortless grace, their teeth are downright inspiring.
One of them — Ms. Stiles, for what it’s worth — may even have the ability to act. But she is forced by the script to say things like ”Have to endorphinize” and ”Cake is my world,” so how could we tell? For his part, Mr. Prinze, with his charming, lopsided smile, cheerfully impersonates a young man who feels that his relationship is beginning to fray because his girlfriend insists on opening her eyes when they kiss, and because when he beats her at Ping-Pong she refuses to congratulate him.
Meet Imogen and Al. They are, needless to say, college students, attending a fine old university somewhere in Central Park. They have the usual array of problems, which is to say, none at all. Al majors in something called ”liberal arts” — we glimpse him, now and then, doing a convincing impression of a person reading a book — but his true passion is cooking. ”This is sacred,” he tells Imogen when, in the early days of their courtship, he brings her a cake. (And guess what? Cake is her world! Talk about coincidence.)
Al’s father is a celebrity chef (Henry Winkler) who dreams of a father-son cooking show based on ”Cops.” Imogen has her own dreams and passions: she’s an artist. This means she can look at an abstract canvas and explain to her mystified beau that it is, in fact, ”impressionistic” because ”the brush technique really says something about the ambience.”
Of course it does. The ambience of ”Down to You” — perhaps Imogen knows the significance of the title — is scrubbed, wholesome and bland. Yes, there is a subplot involving Al’s friend Monk (Zak Orth), who parlays an appearance in a pornographic movie called ”Ben Huge” into a career as a highbrow smut auteur with a loft and an Orson Welles accent. Yes, Al is pursued by a predatory pornography actress named Cyrus (Selma Blair), who used to study chemistry at M.I.T. And yes, Al and Imogen do have a lot of sex; they’re college students, after all. But the film — which includes, by my count, exactly two obscenities, and a few interesting new euphemisms (did you know that ”hothouse” was a verb?) — is far less candid, and less graphic, then an average episode of ”Popular” or ”Dawson’s Creek.”
It’s also much less interesting, and less competently made. Kris Isacsson, who wrote and directed, seems aware that a feature film requires narrative complication: not even really good-looking people can be happy all the time. But he flees from anything that might involve real human emotion, or for that matter any credible human activity other than looking good. The script does require Al to sink, briefly, into despair, which Mr. Prinze registers with a charming, lopsided pout. Ms. Stiles is actually called upon to cry. But this is a romantic comedy, so everything turns out fine, and there are scenes that will move you to uncontrollable laughter. But not intentionally.
Down to You (2000)
Directed by: Kris Isacsson
Starring: Freddie Prinze Jr., Julia Stiles, Shawn Hatosy, Selma Blair, Zak Orth, Ashton Kutcher, Rosario Dawson, Lucie Arnaz, Amanda Barfield, Granger Green
Screenplay by: Kris Isacsson
Production Design by: Kevin Thompson
Cinematography by: Robert D. Yeoman
Film Editing by: Stephen A. Rotter
Costume Design by: Michael Clancy
Set Decoration by: Ford Wheeler
Music by: Edmund Choi
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for mature thematic material, sexual content, language, drug and alcohol use.
Distributed by: Buena Vista Pictures
Release Date: January 21, 2000
Visits: 69
