Pharmaceutical drug rep Jamie Randall (Jake Gyllenhaal) who has more notches on his bedpost than most meets his match in Maggie (Anne Hathaway), an alluring free spirit who just so happens to be suffering from early onset Parkinson’s.
It’s nice to see Gyllenhaal and Hathaway on screen again, minus the slightly dodgy aging effects used in Brokeback Mountain. Many fans of the two leads wondered why they signed up to do a fluffy romance movie, but Love and Other Drugs is slightly more than the Rom-Com that it is billed as. Sure, Jamie has his heart stolen by a girl as unpredictable as he is, but the fact that she is suffering from a degenerative disease and her fear of getting close to anyone breaks down his barriers, and gives the audience a reason to root for the relationship to work.
Jake Gyllenhaal is alluring and funny as womaniser Jake, and it is easy to see why the women he is selling his drugs to fall for his charms. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that he looks fantastic and is in possibly the best shape of his life. Anne Hathaway plays a slightly more fleshed out version of the character she played in Valentine’s Day. The disease she is suffering from gives the character more depth and scope, and Hathaway a further chance to be bitchy as well as more Devil-may-care.
The supporting cast of Oliver Platt, Judy Greer and Hank Azaria are fine in their roles, but they are very much sidelined. This is Maggie and Jamie’s story after all. Josh Gad plays Gyllenhaal’s younger brother; although how a family produced such a stunningly handsome son then a decidedly average one is unclear. Gad channels Jonah Hill for the role as… um… Josh. He is used to bring some comedy to the screen, but ultimately, is not needed.
Director Edward Zwick has a varied career as director, writer and producer, creating the strangely muddled The Last Samurai followed by Blood Diamond, which was much more favourably received. Love and Other Drugs falls somewhere in the middle of the aforementioned movies. As soon as Gyllenhaal and Hathaway get naked – which they do, a lot (perhaps the movie would have been better named Sex and Other Drugs, but I digress…) – the plot somehow loses focus and the movie decides to centre on how good these two look naked. At just under two hours long, the story meanders, and an entire section of the film is devoted to Maggie attending a Parkinson’s Support Group, then the potentially interesting medical stuff is glossed over.
In the end, Love and Other Drugs is not the best Rom-Com ever made – the decision to include a serious medical issue works both for and against the movie – but it is better than the trailer makes it out to be. The lead actors manage their roles well and are charming, endearingly insecure and splendidly messed up. As well as this, there is enough nudity to keep everyone happy, but if Jake is your particular piece of eye candy, you will have to form an orderly queue behind me…
Watching this film was like eating pasta without any sauce. bland, boring but it doesn’t make you spew. and ll the hot jake nudity in the world doesn’t make it any better!
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