Film Review: Love and Other Drugs

Rating: MA 15+

Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, Oliver Platt

Director: Edward Zwick

This review is going to be difficult to write because I feel Love and Other Drugs is missing something crucial. I still cannot work out what exactly this is, but here goes nothing...

                                                                                                                                                                                   

We meet Jamie Randall (Gyllenhaal) in 1996, a suave ladies’ man who has just become a salesman for a large drug company. He then meets Maggie Murdock (Hathaway) in a doctor’s surgery, whom he sees as merely his next fling. Maggie is, however, the female version of him – witty, charming, and only seeking sex. She does have Stage 1 Parkinson’s disease, so I guess she is ‘living it up’ while she still can.

Of course, the characters begin to develop deeper feelings for each other – Jamie wants to take care of Maggie, and Maggie (although completely in love with Jamie) says that would be unfair on him. By this stage, the subplot of Jamie selling the new wonder drug Viagra has taken a back seat, and the audience has forgotten that the movie is actually based on the book Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman. It’s obviously made him rich though, because suddenly he’s driving around in a Porche and is offered a higher-paid position in Chicago!

Like most romances, the central characters do everything to sabotage their relationship, but when the final scene beckons (Gyllenhaal’s “I want us” speech), Maggie melts into the Jamie’s arms and everything is forgotten.

The movie, however, is not all clichés. Maggie attends a Parkinson’s disease conference, and the audience is faced with the different stages of the debilitating illness. One man in particular shares how his life has changed since his wife’s diagnosis. What he says is not very nice, but probably expresses how some people feel when faced with such uncertainty.

There are many ‘shagging’ and nudity scenes (Hathaway is naked for much of her first few scenes), which I think the director uses to take the audience’s mind away from the generally lack-lustre storyline and often pointless banter between the characters. Therefore, Love and Other Drugs has probably only made it to mainstream cinema because of its two famous actors.

Spend your money on another movie and wait until this comes out on DVD!

2.5 out of 5 stars