Love and Other Drugs - quick review (1 Viewer)

[Patrick Sun]

For story purposes, this film takes place earlier in the 2000s. Jamie (Jake Gyllenhall) is an up-and-coming pharmaceutical rep for Pfizer (after going through many other jobs due to either boredom or jacked up libido) who has a way with the ladies, and isn't afraid to tap anything that moves. He's been tasked with pushing Zanax and Zoloft onto doctors, who normally prescribe Prozac and other drugs of that ilk. While on rounds with a bribed doctor (Hank Azaria), Jamie, playing an intern takes part of a doctor's appointment where Maggie (Anne Hathaway) is the patient, and in need of medication for her condition. Jamie is quite taken by Maggie, violent flirting ensues, and they find themselves very compatible amorously, but Maggie doesn't want any semblance of a relationship due to her condition, and simply wants to live in the moment. While this is going on, Jamie strikes gold with some little blue pills, and his professional life is on the upswing.


Suffice it to say, the rest of the film deals with Jamie and Maggie's non-relationship relationship, and the ups-and-downs of it. Overall, the film feels like it needed another re-write at times, the characters lacked a certain something that hampers the burgeoning love story happening between this unlikely pairing. But that being said, Gyllenhaal and Hathaway have nice chemistry, and overall ease with one another that comes through on the screen. I give it 2.5 stars, or a grade of C+.