"Love & Other Drugs" – Movie Review

11/27/2010 Posted by Admin

"Love & Other Drugs"

Movie Review

By our guest blogger, Matthew Schimkowitz


If some films from the '80s were about a quirky character falling for their practical opposite, the '90s focused on smug yuppies realizing they were enamored with a verbose rival.

"Love & Other Drugs" falls into this classification. Taking place in 1996, the film sees itself in the company of "Jerry McGuire," but with its shifting tones and incessant subplots, you won’t wonder who completes with whom, so much as who cares?

"Love & Other Drugs" isn’t just one movie – it’s four. Jamie (Jake Gyllenhaal), a hot-shot pharmaceutical dealer, learns the ins and outs of his new job seducing receptionists, until he meets his match in Maggie (Anne Hathaway), a Parkinson’s disease patient, who is far too concerned with being an angst-ridden '90s girl to worry about something as trite as love.

At least that’s how the first 90-minutes present it.

The two get off to a rocky start. He’s too cocky for her and she’s too smart for his tricks. But since they’re both so attractive, they hit it off with one stipulation--since she’s concerned with how her disease will affect him, they decide not to call their relationship...a relationship. As you can guess, Jamie falls for her, she’s unsure, and eventually both try to prove that their ready for some commitment.

This goes on for roughly under two hours, amidst Jamie’s rise to the top of the drug world, thanks to the recently released Viagra pill; his brother developing an off-putting and weird incestuous relationship with him; and finally, Maggie’s Parkinson’s disease becoming a real issue worth discussing.

Director Edward Zwick has two really good movies in here--one about the advent of Viagra and its affect on American culture, and one about dealing with a difficult disease and the strain it can put on personal relationships. Unfortunately, he chose both, leaving audiences with two mostly humorless hours filled with awkward tonal shifts, vague characterizations and Oliver Platt doing the cabbage patch.

Gyllenhaal and Hathaway in particular perform well in their respective movies, but they have trouble meeting in the middle--the conflicting styles of humor and sentiment just don’t mesh, which deflates the film’s more sincere moments.

There’s enough talent in this movie to avoid low-brow gags--such as Jamie’s Viagra overdose and his brother’s desperate search for his car’s shifter. Also, if distilled, there are enough stories here to make at least one interesting movie.

It just needs a dose of Ritalin to figure out what that movie is.

Grade: D+

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2 comments:

  1. Anonymous said...

    Хотя статья и вышла малый, однако на выше взор эта увлекательная тема раскрыта в ней стопроцентно. Я рельно вызнал град нового себе!

  2. Anonymous said...

    Да, жалко, что обновления для блоге происходят не так нередко, наподобие хотелось бы.