1/22/97
  Tonight I saw the new movie "Down to You" starring Freddie Prinzr Jr.(Wing Comander, She's All That) as Al Connely  and Julia Stiles(10 Things I About You) as Imogen a passionate young couple who experience the joys and pitfalls of firstlove. The movie begins with Al in line at a coffe shop observing a young couple falling in love for the first time, he strikes a comparison to his first love and as he drinks his coffee begins telling us of the first time he fell in love, flashing back to his sophmore year of college in New York City we find him first sitting at a table with two friends at a local bar that does not bother to check ID's and has become a popular hangout for the college crowd.Sitting in a booth with his friends Monk(Zak Orth) and Hicks(Shawn Hatosy),Zak is telling them about his new carrer as a porn star and Hicks is begging for an audition. Monk agrees on the condition that Hicks brings a certain new freshman back to thier dorm room and gets her in bed,Monk also suggests Al take an interest in freshman Imogen. Al turns to see who she is and is instantly smitten with this lovely young lady. He goes up to where she is standing at the jukebox and suggests a song, They talk for awhile then she leaves with some friends for another club. Back to the present time Imogen is sitting in her office and begins to join in the story telling. The story continues with a mix of flashback and narraration by both lead charecters telling how thier relationship progresses and eventually falls apart.

  We've seen a number of teen films in the last few years and Down to You seems to follow a traditional teen movie formula except that its charecters a slightly older, which is a nice change for the genre. However with the age change comes a greater librilizing of moral value. Although it refreshing to see Al and Imogene wait a while before falling into bed with each other once they do sex seems to be an almost daily occurence. And then when Imogen starts her sophmore year her roommate introduces her to the recreational smoking of crack. Thier are a couple of scenes that basicly glorify the use of drugs, the only negative side effect being when Imogene runs her car into a tree while driving under the influence. Both her and Al escape with minor cuts.

  At least with the sex thier is a negative aspect to it. It ends up being the biggest part of the strian the finally breaks up thier relationship. The final straw is when Imogene sleeps with another guy,  unable to reconcile the relationship she moves to San Fransico to finish school and eventually goes to work for a book publisher. Al falls into a deep depresion and after graduation Bounces from girlfriend to girlfriend eventually having a brief affair with a porn start then dropping out of a French cooking school. He wallows in his misery eventually is hospitalized after drinking a bottle of shampoo(the brand Imogen used). At this point I'm going to stop so as not to give away the ending(as if you didnt know how this movie would end before you read this).

   Overall it an ok movie, Freddie Prinze Jr. is a good young actor he just needs to take more mature parts and this film is a step in the right direction. Same can be said about Julia Stiles. A good suppoting cast also contributes to this film. Thats one thing about these types of films, they always have good acting, the flaw is usually in the script. "Down to You" despite the predicatable plot is suprisingly well written, with the exception of its moral flaws. Not a totally bad movie overall, but no Oscar contender either.

Down to you Web site