, and it's a skill he's perpetuated ever since. You could even include his production of My So Called Life
, the teen drama series people of a certain age still look upon as the shining example of young adult life in the 1990s. Love and Other Drugs is firmly rooted in the era of the 90s as well, during huge pharmaceutical boom that saw a new drug created for every possible ailment under the sun. Commercials flooded the market, new and interesting drugs were around every corner and in every doctor's office. Drugs were being shoved down people's throats like M&M's. We also got the beginnings of the great Viagra boom, which caused quite a "rise" in sales. In such a scenario, you'd think that the story of a slick talkin' pharmaceutical rep and his tragically ill girlfriend would make for some weighty, inspired material. You'd be right normally, but in the case of Love and Other Drugs what we got was barely a notch above romantic comedy fluff. It's good, but has the potential to be so much more.Jake Gylenhall and his puppy dog eyes stars as Jamie Randall, a slick talkin' stallion with a killer sales game. He can sell anything, but the product he pushes the most is himself. His womanizing ways have been both a blessing and a curse, and when we meet him he's just lost his job for screwing the boss's girl. Jamie isn't down and out for long as he signs up for a training course to be work for Pfizer, one of the largest drug manufacturers in the world. He soon meets the gorgeous and hard hearted Maggie Murdock(Anne Hathaway), a woman with commitment issues worse than any guy. She and Jamie are a perfect fit....to be friends with benefits, and it isn't long before the two are spending all their spare time together. By "spending time" I mean lots of hot, unexpectedly explicit sex. More open and honest than you'd expect to see from two such mainstream performers.
When Jamie starts to develop feelings for Maggie, the crap starts to hit the fan. She's been afflicted with early on set Parkinson's Disease, which carries the promise of some truly horrific times ahead. With that future in front of her, Maggie's in a "live for today" mode. Can hardly blame her, but it puts him in an awkward position. How does a guy who makes his living pushing marginally necessary drugs on people live with a woman who needs constant medication just to get through the day? One of Maggie's biggest hang ups is that she is always dating pharmaceutical reps just like him. Does she do it as a form of self loathing? It has to bother her that he sells cures for ailments most people could live with while she takes a ton of drugs that will never cure her condition. Does that bother her at all? We never really find out, and that's my biggest problem with this film.
I expect more than a cursory examination of their relationship. Zwick has only made one other romantic comedy, the Demi Moore/Rob Lowe steamer About Last Night. So I get that he might be a bit out of his element. There are awkward shifts in tone, going from light hearted to extremely dark in the blink of an eye. One moment our heartstrings are effectively tugged by Anne Hathaway as her character struggles in her weakness to simply open a bottle. The next moment Jamie's brother is wackin' off to a homemade porno. But at no point do we ever get any reason to care about Jamie and Maggie as a couple. I wanted to know so much more about her in particular that I was fed up by the time the movie was over that we never got that chance. It's a testament to Anne Hathaway's performance that she made me care about Maggie's plight. Expect her to get an Oscar nomination for sure. Jake Gylenhall is so much more effective when he's not trying to play a charmer. It's not his natural suit. Never has been. They were much more effective together in Brokeback Mountain
as a couple basically stuck in a sham marriage. The problem is that Love and Other Drugs doesn't exactly fit anywhere. It's too dark to be a traditional rom-com. It's not funny enough to be a comedy. Yet, it's still too breezy to be a drama. Love and Other Drugs is so close to being great that it actually makes me angry. A little more exploration of the time and the characters would've sealed the deal, but instead what we got is like a spoonful of really weak medicine.
