Directed by Peyton Reed • 2003 • United States
Starring Renée Zellweger, Ewan McGregor, David Hyde Pierce

A playfully postmodern take on the Doris Day/Rock Hudson sex comedy, this giddily inventive update delights in the midcentury style and clothes while offering a fresh perspective on the genre’s battle-of-the-sexes premise. In 1962, author Barbara Novak (Renée Zellweger) has made a cultural splash with her new book, “Down with Love,” which encourages women to forgo conventional relationships and freely pursue sex and pleasure. Unnerved by Barbara’s ideas, suave, womanizing journalist Catcher Block (Ewan McGregor) concocts a plan to make her fall for him.