GALLERY
BUY: DVD
RELEASED: 16 May 2003
CAST
E.G. … John Aylward
Sally … Dorie Barton
Gladys … Rachel Dratch
J.R. … Michael Ensign
Elkie … Melissa George
Catcher Block … Ewan McGregor
C.B. … Warren Munson
R.J. … Timothy Omundson
Vikki Hiller … Sarah Paulson
Peter MacMannus … David Hyde Pierce
Yvette … Ivana Milicevic
Maurice … Jack Plotnick
Theodore Banner … Tony Randall
J.B. … Matt Ross
Gwendolyn … Jeri Ryan
Barbara Novak … Renée Zellweger
SYNOPSIS
Peyton Reed directs a kitschy, splitscreeny modern spin on the classic Rock Hudson-Doris Day sex comedies.
Barbara Novak (Zellweger), author of feminist self-help book Down With Love, incurs the wrath of Know magazine’s star journalist, Catcher Block (McGregor), who plans to exact revenge by having her fall in love with him, thus exposing her as a fraud. There’s a very twisty twist that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but however.
DAVID’S ROLE
Quite a fun, Nilesy one this. David plays Peter McMannus, Catcher’s best friend and editor, who’s a little less lucky in love. He falls for Barbara’s agent, Vicki Hiller (a cute, hilarious Sarah Paulson). He’s prissy and repressed. He wears shoe lifts, garters and fantastic glasses. DHP has quite marvellous chemistry with both Ewan McGregor and Sarah Paulson, so all his scenes are pretty much a treat.
CRITICAL RESPONSE
“Pierce, as Block’s editor, practically steals the movie with nothing more than his elegant and always impeccable timing. Even the broadest jokes have a kind of delicacy when he delivers them.” – Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com
“Playing Peter, this movie’s equivalent to the old Tony Randall-style foil (the nervous, brittle, slightly fey Hudson sidekick), Pierce really captures the essence. Without resorting to outright imitation, he gets Randall’s clipped, over-articulated delivery and starchily neurotic persona.” – Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune
“Paulson and David Hyde Pierce, the Zen master of fussiness as Carson’s uptight editor, seem a more interesting couple.” – Gene Seymour, Newsday.com
“Mr. Pierce, ever the paragon of uptight prissiness …” – AO Scott, New York Times
“On the plus side, the filmmakers had the clever notion of casting David Hyde Pierce … in the male sidekick role, and the actor fulfils his duties in pitch-perfect fashion.” – Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter
“As Catch’s publisher, David Hyde Pierce runs rings around both the leads. Admittedly, his fumbling, lovestruck character is virtually a reprisal of Niles in Frasier, but this style of archly knowing comedy comes as second nature to him.” - Alan Morrison, Scottish Daily Record
“As Catcher’s sexually paralysed editor, Peter McMannus, [Pierce] breathes new energy into the role played in the Hudson-Day films by Tony Randall … Only he seems to understand that his character can only work if he surrenders himself to him.” - Tom Ryan, Sunday Age
“The standout, however, is David Hyde Pierce as Peter MacMannus, Catch’s editor, best friend, polar opposite and Vikki’s would-be lover. In short, he’s the Tony Randall character and a magnificent facsimile at that.” - Steve Persall, St Petersburg Times
BEST BITS
- Catcher and Peter doing a half-sexy, half-frightening dance in their opening scene together. (Actually it’s more 30-70.) Something about shaking maracas and bouncing bongos …
- Peter making a martini and ceremoniously ‘pouring’ into it from a closed bottle.
- Peter approaching Vikki in the restaurant, telling himself to be cool, but then caving and blurting out “Are you in love with that football player?”
- Peter trying to seduce Vikki in Catcher’s apartment and fumbling with all the gadgets; there’s this great part where he flicks a switch to turn on some music and makes a hopeful ‘open sesame’ type gesture.
- Beatnik Peter in the lotus position on Catcher’s bar. “You dig daddy-o?”
- Vikki smacking Peter across the face, reminding him he’s “just like every other man” and sparking him into action.
- The post-credit splitscreen scene with Peter and Vikki. We shan’t give away what happens.
BEST LINES
[to Catcher] “My analyst says I only react to you with such vehement loathing because I admire you so much. He says I resent you for being a self-made man. As opposed to the son of a self-made man.”
PETER: What would you say is the average length for most men?
CATCHER: How would I know? Do you think I spend all my time in the locker room at the club looking around making a comparative study?
PETER: Let me see yours again, then. We could measure it. I’ll get a ruler.
CATCHER: Better make it a yardstick.
PETER: Let’s be accurate. Make sure you’ve got it fully extended. You have it up the whole way.
CATCHER: It stays up all the way all day long Mac. That’s the miracle I was telling you about – better living through chemistry. You got sixteen inches.
PETER: Sixteen inches! How long does a man’s hose have to be?
CATCHER: That’s thirty-two inches of confidence in every step. Don’t forget I’ve got two of them.
[Aaaand they’re talking about socks. Kudos to Dorie Barton, the actress playing the hapless secretary who overhears them, for her great reactions.]
PETER: Catch, you are the best friend a guy with twenty diagnosed neuroses ever had.
CATCHER: Well, we’ve been friends a long time. I knew you when you only had twelve.
“It was nice while it lasted. I haven’t had dinner and breakfast with the same woman since I had a nanny.”
CATCHER: You said she was a spinster.
PETER: I never used the word spinster in my life. Okay, once. When I told my mother it was technically incorrect for her to call her son a spinster.
CATCHER: You said she was a brunette.
PETER: I did not.
CATCHER: She sure didn’t sound like a blonde on the telephone. Do you still wanna date Vikki?
PETER: Of course I do. Do you think I wanna die a spinster?
PETER: Quick, taste my sauce. Too tart?
CATCHER: This is your big emergency?
PETER: Yes! I invited Vikki to dinner. It has to be perfect so she’ll find me irresistible and I can make my big move.
CATCHER: You could have made your big move three weeks ago, Mac. I keep telling you. That’s these Down With Love girls’ claim to fame. One date, no waiting.
PETER: Yes, well, these Down With Love girls might be used to having sex the way a man does but I’m not. Too sweet?
“Where’s my geisha? I need my shoes.”
“Who you callin’ Nancy?”
CATCHER: What did Vikki say, any luck?
PETER: No. Barbara still doesn’t want to see you. She’s thrown away everything you sent her. The flowers, the candy. The six thousand dollar state of the art Celestron telescope that wasn’t really for you to send because it was mine, not yours.
CATCHER: She hates me.
PETER: At least Novak dropped you flat. You know where you stand. Sometimes I think Vikki only started talking marriage to me that night in order to get me to have sex with her. Once I did, I hardly ever see her. Except when she comes back for more. And I always give in. Makes me feel so used! [knocks back drink] It’s just not right! I shouldn’t feel used, she should! But she’s taking her cues from Novak. That’s why you have to get to Novak. You have to solve this Catch. You have to squash her! Crush her! If not for the sake of civilisation, then just for me.
DVD EXTRAS
Quite a generous extras package here, including a commentary by director Peyton Reed. Much of it is technical speak, but he does call DHP a comedic genius, and there’s this nice bit:
“David, again, his style of performance is just amazing to me, because I’ve seen the movie – obviously by the time I’m doing this audio commentary – I’ve seen the movie just dozens and dozens of times throughout the editing process and screenings and everything. And I will still notice things that David Hyde Pierce is doing in the corner of the frame. Y’know, a look or a hand gesture or something. And he is – it’s like a great dancer or somebody. He’s just so hilarious and brings so much to his performance.”
There’s also deleted scenes (including one with Peter getting ready for his all-important date with Vikki, weeping from nerves in the bath); a montage of the actors’ hair and wardrobe screen tests; and a bunch of documentaries with interviews, in which DHP pithily sums up his character’s motivation (“Sex, sex, sex”). And our favourite – a pretty awesome blooper reel, which has lots of funny stuff like this:
EWAN: [unsure if he’s meant to be Chip or Catcher in this scene] Hang on … who am I?
DAVID: [off camera] Obi Wan.
EWAN: Thanks.
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