Down to You

Yet another Freddie Prinze Jnr-lead teen romance comedy about two college students, Alec (Prinze Jnr) and Imogen (Julia Stiles, Save The Last Dance) who fall in love, and experience the highs and lows of being in a serious relationship. The good stuff: Unique and refreshing editing, Julia Stiles. The bad stuff: Freddie Prinze Jnr... he's a very ordinary actor, the plot... 100% unoriginal and not very engaging. Overall, I wouldn't say this is a bad movie, but it's not 'good' in any sense of the term and is ultimately completely forgettable.

"Down To You" is yet another formulaic teen romance movie....boy meets girl, boy and girl date, break up and get back together. Very uninteresting,the cast (mostly) is forgettable and frankly, we've seen this movie before......

However, what sets "Down" apart is 3 wonderful performances, and 1 so bad it's gonna get special attention in this review...

We'll start with the good....Julia Stiles is Imogen, a new freshman at an unnamed NYC college. She is a stellar artist, and wishes to persue that in some manner. Ms. Stiles delivers a performance above the drivel she has to work with, making Imogen a teen character with heart and feeling. She once again (as in "10 Things") dances in this one..and I personally think she needs a dance scene in each movie.

Henry Winkler plays Ray Connelly...host of a nationwide cooking show, and father of Al, the lead male in the story. His character is well played and humorous, with grand visions for both himself and his son (he wants to do a cooking show take off of "Cops" with Al). A great performance from Mr. Winkler, and he is quickly putting the ghost of Fonzie behind him.

Now to the bad before I surprise you and give you the last good.....Selma Blair plays Cyrus, a major flirt and porn actress. I hate to have to say this, but after "Cruel Intentions" and now this, I am truly convinced that she is either "someone's" daughter or is involved in a relationship with someone. This woman cannot act. I truly believe with every fiber of my being that she could not play dead convincingly. Hopefully her performance here will kill what little career she has.

Now, for the last good review.......are you ready for this?? Freddie Prinze Jr. is Alfred..the film's lead male character. He spots Imogen across a crowded room and the two instantly hit it off. After forgetable turns in every movie he has done, he shows a never before seen maturity and makes Alfred a character that seems real and true.

"Down To You" is more formulaic drivel aimed at the easily entertained teen audience. While the story is something we've all seen before, the performances of its lead characters make this movie worth a watch, regardless of how bad it really is.

1 out of 5

"Down to You" was slammed by critics when it was released, claiming it to be unoriginal, unfunny and really a waste of time. Pay no attention to them. It is rare for romantic comedies to be entirely original [they are after all dealing with love], but Down to You does have it's moments differing it from most of the recently released teen comedies [to which it has constantly been compared].

Through narration by both protagonists the audience is able to see the development of both characters in the long-term and how they ultimately react to each other. Freddie Prinze Jr and Julia Stiles were perfectly cast and behaved as mature young adults for the majority of the film [sparing the audience from cliched teen talk]. They leave the zaniness to their co-stars, which was a good move. The film is more of a "love story" then most recent teen flicks dealing mainly with "physical attraction" or "opposites attract".

One problem with Down to You however is it's not presented well enough to keep the audience interested. Perhaps in the hands of a more capable director this would be achieved, as I got a bit bored with a few of the scenes and some jokes really fall flat. Because of this, it's not as memorable as other teen flicks such as "10 Things" or "Scream", even.. as it's pacing is quite slow. It's saving grace is the cast. Henry Winkler gives a comic performance as Prinze's celebrity-chef father and Zak Orth plays Prinze's "friend turned porn- star-friend" with gutso. Selma Blair gave a sultry performance but lacked development making her nothing more than "the porn star girl".

Compared to the other three major teen romance flicks of the year (Loser, Whatever it Takes, Boys and Girls) Down to You is indeed one of the finest. It just needed more "oomph" to make it more memorable.

7/10

Now I could win awards for being the world's biggest romcom lover. I mean I'll even watch really really bad ones ('The Wedding Date' anyone?) but this is one of the ones I didn't really like. I mean it's watchable, don't get me wrong, but it's not something I'm likely to rewatch in a hurry. Freddie Prinze Jnr just isn't an engaging person and I just didn't feel the chemistry between him and Julia Stiles and the peripheral characters weren't charming or interesting at all. Having said that there's this amazing scene where Julia Stiles dances in front of a room of people (.... cue 10 Things, The Prince And Me, Save The Last Dance ....) and it's really funny. I'd say that was the thing worth watching this film for.

Al and Imogen have both finished college and now live separately despite seeing each other throughout their college years. However it is clear that both have some degree of unresolved feelings for each other. In to-camera interviews they discuss their relationship and trace it's path from the first time they met in Imogen's freshman year.

It is a device that I have grown accustom to because I have seen it done well quite often, but the direct-to-camera style is clearly difficult to do. First of all you need strong or likeable characters as the style is basically requiring some degree of interest of empathy from the first second. Without this it is pretty weak. This film stumbles at this point because even halfway through the film, I was still struggling to care less about the characters. Past this problem the plot is not the strongest – it has been done before regardless of superficial changes. It has little genuine humour and mostly is just the cinematic version of puppy love. When the problems come they are so poorly handled by the script that they fail to convince.

Sadly the blame must be shared between script and actors for most of this. The script fails to create characters that convince. The dialogue rarely rings true and sounds like a weak teen drama at worst. However this doesn't totally excuse the actors as they don't bring much to the roles. Prinze Jr is so wishy-washy and lifeless that he is not someone I ever got behind as real. He is too idealistic and, as a result, any scenes where he has to show hurt or anger, are unbelievable. Stiles is OK but suffers from a poor script. The support cast are basically monkeys who are simply comedy characters. I know that sounds cruel but none have any effort put into them – the porn star (no type of porn I've ever seen), the geek etc. Henry Winkler gets the odd smile but is just a famous face to add colour. Selma Blair is the least convincing porn actress I've ever seen but the Biggest waste to me was Rosario Dawson, not only gorgeous but a real talent given the chance, her character was so pointless that I wondered why they even bothered creating it.

It's not an awful film – it is simply mediocre and unremarkable to the point of monotony. Every part of it feels like you've seen it better somewhere else. The script is lazy – things are poorly thought out and the characters are thin and poorly developed. None of the cast really put their heart into it and the end result is a film that doesn't really do anything but still seems to take forever to finish!

Although it will be remembered for things like Trainspotting and My Beautiful Laundrette, FilmFour folded partly because it produced things like this that were without spark, wit or invention.