Now now, let's be fair...

This is hardly the worst film ever. It did have some funny moments (aaah, that Lana sure cracks me up), and the film didn't have any major lows in it. The thing is, what I really don't get about this film is...what was the point?! Usually you come away from this kinda film with a nice feeling of joy to the world, or ho hum wasn't that pleasant.

Down to You completely lost that given that it was told as a story by the two main characters, looking back on it from their older, (presumably) wiser perspectives, and time seemingly had no meaning and jumped about across a large time span every so often. You were never given the chance to connect with either of the main characters and so didn't really give a sh*t what happened to them. Plus everything the two main characters did that would normally let an audience build up an understanding or empathy for them was instead commented on by their older selves, and so again the audience didn't have the chance to build up a 'personal relationship' with the characters, as we were told how to view everything that went on. If that makes sense.

And what was the end message? That working on a relationship can carry it through? Great. Normally teen films are actually aimed at teens, with some daft but loveable moral such as don't judge a girl by her dungarees. These older characters already had a sense of self and so pretty much had nothing to learn other than how to deal with a long term relationship. Again, most films of the genre push the romance buttons by actually including the romance...this just went from a hug to a relationship. Note how most successful teen romcoms end as the two main characters come together, not begin this way. So sure, this was trying to break free of that mould, but it didn't actually work.

Down to You has some moments where it was clearly trying to tick the Offbeat and Quirky boxes, with the porn, the pot and of course, the shampoo. The shampoo reeeaaally annoyed me. After he nearly killed himself, he smiled it off and pretty much blew it off with a (supposedly funny but infact crappy) line about becoming immune. I see where it was trying to go, but it seemed out of place and not properly resolved, thus entirely pointless. The Sweetest Thing is another film that seems to happily trundle along in the standard format, before randomly adding in songs about penises, and penises in glory holes, and...penises stuck on tonsils. Hmmm. But then again, The Sweetest Thing did actually go all out when it was doing these things, and I just happen to be madly in love with Christina Applegate, so it still ranks much higher than Down to You.

There were some annoying done-before film techniques thrown in, too. The scene with the past relationships at their doors, one after another, and the cutting to the down the camera delivery of 'party, party' being two examples. It made the film lose any sense of continuity, something which a film like this needs in some sense or another.

Actually, you know what? I have now decided that this film is 100% crappy. Except for Lana. Lana was only slightly crappy.

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