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

Book Review: The Carrie Diaries

I’m probably overdoing it with the girly books at the moment, but being a huge fan of Sex and the City, I simply had to find out how Carrie Bradshaw became the famous fictional character she is today!

The Carrie Diaries follows a small-town girl who is navigating her way through her senior year of high school. With ambitions of becoming a writer, Carrie finds herself in the midst of typical teenage behaviour – friendship strains, boyfriend troubles, and risk-taking behaviour. Through this, we learn how Carrie develops her writing voice and how she makes her way to her beloved New York City. You may, therefore, think the book is more about The City than Sex. This is not the case. Sex is there, but is presented in an ‘innocent teenager’ manner than in the exploration nature we see in the television show. But what else could be expected from a 17-year-old?

While Bushnell does explore Carrie’s family background, it is very difficult for me to believe this is the real Carrie we have come to know on the famous television series. Thus, the book and screen adaptations have the following discrepancies:

1.       The book states Carrie’s mother died when she was a young girl, leaving her father to raise three young girls. The television series reveals Carrie’s father left when she was five years old.

2.       In the book, Carrie is a good cook. In the series, she keeps sweaters in her stove!

3.       In the book, Carrie calls Samantha Jones when she first arrives in New York City. In the movie, Carrie meets Samantha after Charlotte and Miranda.

4.       In the book, Carrie’s first love is Sebastian Kydd. In the series, it is Jeremy.

The Carrie Diaries has been labelled as teenage fiction yet it may be difficult for some of today’s teenagers to relate to Carrie’s life. Sure, she deals with friendship betrayal and boyfriend confusion, but at a time when perms and white go-go boots were all the rage. However, with many details from the television series ignored, it seems that Bushnell has used her life as the basis for Carrie’s story (she also grew up in Connecticut during the 80s).  This leaves me thinking that the book may have only been written so Bushnell could further benefit financially from the Sex and the City brand. Perhaps she needed some new Manolos?

2.5 out of 5 stars