Down to You

Directed by Kris Isacsson, Down to You follows Freddie Prinze Jr.’s Alfred and Julia Stiles’ Imogen as they meet in college and experience a series of ups and downs within their relationship. It’s a reasonable premise that’s employed to predominantly grating and unwatchable effect by Isacsson, as the filmmaker, armed with his own screenplay, delivers a perpetually (and pervasively) smug endeavor that contains virtually nothing in the way of compelling, relatable elements – with the aggressively broad atmosphere compounded by an ongoing reliance on over-the-top, nails-on-a-chalkboard subplots and periphery characters. (The latter is personified by Zak Orth’s intolerable turn as an egotistical and completely irritating friend of Alfred’s.) There is, as such, little doubt that one’s continuing efforts at working up a rooting interest in the central characters’ exploits and relationship troubles fall hopelessly flat, and it goes without saying, certainly, that the expected fake break-up fares especially poorly and paves the way for a virtually endless (and thoroughly anticlimactic) final stretch – which does, in the end, cement Down to You‘s place as an often uncommonly worthless romcom that squanders the undeniable charisma of its two leads.

* out of ****