Love and Other Drugs (2010)
Certified: 18
Duration: 112 minutes
Directed by: Edward Zwick
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, Oliver Platt, Hank Azaria, Jill Clayburgh, George Segal, Judy Greer
KRS release
Love and Other Drugs is the first romantic comedy directed by Edward Zwick, who has given us such epics as Glory (1989) and The Last Samurai (2003). While the film has some really great romantic and comic moments, it however seeps too much into melodrama.
The film is a loose adaptation of Jamie Reidy’s tome Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman. Jake Gyllenhaal is Jamie Randall, a sleek salesman who can sell anything and he is also quite a hit with the ladies. However, he has not been playing safe with his money, unlike his brother Josh (Josh Gad), and he ends up unemployed. He then lands a job with a major pharmaceutical company. Here he is teamed up with Bruce (Oliver Platt) and soon the two are on the road doing the rounds.
In order to get to Dr Stan Knight (Hank Azaria) Jamie ends up wooing his secretary Cindy (Judy Greer). Things however become complicated when Jamie notices one of the doctor’s patients, 26-year-old Maggie (Anne Hathaway). The latter is facing Parkinson’s disease and is on a quest to live life to the full – this has also included sleeping with Trey Hannigan (Gabriel Macht), another salesman from another pharmaceutical company.
Soon the two are sleeping together and then several events occur that threaten to derail everything. First off, all of Jamie’s sales increase due to a pill known as Viagra and he starts falling in love with Maggie for real.
Mr Zwick’s direction takes itself too seriously as he makes relationships and bedroom tugs-of-war look like epic battles. It’s when the elements of the sickness and disease start to dominate the film’s proceedings that he loses control of the film. He manages to skim over some of the situations, but he gets bogged down in some syrupy sweet moments.
Mr Gyllenhaal plays Jamie well: He is a real hustler, a salesman who can sell anything and it’s fun watching him become a salesman who simply goes hog all in his ambitious path. Meanwhile, Anne Hathaway is also in fine form as she gives her role of Maggie a sad touch, a woman who is afraid to get intimate and uses her illness as a shield. She is also quite daring in her performance as a precocious lover. She is the one who takes control of the relationship with Mr Gyllenhaal. Comic moments are delivered by Hank Azaria while Josh Gad seems to be a residue from a Judd Apatow comedy.
The film’s script labours under too much effort to try to be original and provocative. At times it delves into the world of medicinal sales, at others it’s a romantic comedy and then there is the sickness aspect. All these elements never really sit well together.