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Sunday, November 28, 2010
MOVIE REVIEW
Love And Other Drugs
The Hard Sale, With Lots Of Soft Love Underneath
Anne Hathaway as Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal as Jamie in Edward Zwick's "Love
And Other Drugs".
Fox
by
Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com
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Sunday,
November 28, 2010
Edward Zwick directs the romantic dramedy "Love And Other Drugs", and the film,
which opened on Wednesday across the U.S. and Canada, is a stale, low-key
feature-length edition of Mr. Zwick's 1980s television series "thirtysomething",
with less quirky characters. (The late Jill Clayburgh features in her
final film role, and Mr. Zwick's film is dedicated to her.)
Based on Jamie Reidy's book Hardsell: The Evolution Of A Viagra Salesman,
"Love" is animated by the spontaneity and passion of Anne Hathaway as Maggie, a
carefree young woman with Parkinson's Disease. Maggie is encountered by
Jamie Randall (Jake Gyllenhaal), a charming, handsome young salesman whose trade
is the drug Zoloft. He's trying to increase Pfizer's sales of the product.
Soon Maggie and Jamie will fall in love.
"Love And Other Drugs" is a droll, lifeless romantic comedy, but when Ms.
Hathaway and Mr. Gyllenhaal unite onscreen, you feel as if the movie is worth
the investment. (At least their characters are.) Mr. Gyllenhaal,
fresh from his action exploits in "Prince Of Persia" this past summer, tries to
get soulful and expressive as Jamie, and mostly stays on course with a generic
character. The film's clichés -- the horny, overweight younger brother,
the raffish work colleague, and echoes of romances like "Say Anything", "Jerry
Maguire" and the Ray-Ban style and navy overcoat of "Risky Business" are
obvious. You've seen this movie before, as have I. About a million
times.
There's a jaded cookie-cutter quality to Mr. Zwick's film, and his films in
general are often neat and tidy. The parameters in which he works are
straightforward for any romantic story: boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in
love, boy... You get the idea. In any event, Mr. Zwick typically hews
toward safety, even in true-life historical dramas like "Glory" and
"Defiance". Here he uneasily inserts the
health ailment into the screenplay that he, producing partner and "thirtysomething"
cohort Marshall Herskovitz and Charles Randolph wrote.
Regardless of whether or not the Parkinson's element is contained in Mr. Reidy's
book, the scenes with real-life patients feel false and forced for the story's
sake. I felt manipulated, not believing the scenes were authentic enough
to fit the film's mostly light mood. Mr. Zwick unnecessarily makes the
incurable ailment a background story when he and the film would have both been
better suited without it. The director should have either chosen to go all
the way with the Parkinson's angle or not at all.
"Love And Other Drugs" is a treat if you enjoy watching Anne Hathaway, who's
become a very good actress ("Rachel Getting Married", "Brokeback Mountain",
"Becoming Jane"), but other than she, Mr. Zwick's film isn't memorable material
in the pantheon of romantic comedies.
With: Oliver Platt, Hank Azaria, Josh Gad, Gabriel Macht, Judy Greer, Kimberly
Scott, Kate Jennings Grant, Katheryn Winnick, George Segal, Nikki Deloach,
Natalie Gold.
"Love And Other Drugs" is rated R by the Motion Picture Association Of America
for strong sexual content, nudity, pervasive language and some drug material.
The film's running time is one hour and 52 minutes.
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