I finally got to see the much hyped film ‘Love and Other Drugs’, directed by Edward Zwick (‘Blood Diamond’, ‘Courage Under Fire’) and starring Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal. The film is an adaptation of the best selling autobiography by American Pfizer salesman Jamie Reidy, ‘Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman’.
In this contemporary romantic drama, Gyllenhaal plays Jamie Randell, a laid-back, charismatic guy who is trying to establish himself in his new career as a pharmaceutical salesman. Randell is sitting in with Dr Stan Knight (Hank Azaria) as he sees patients, in between trying to convince him to prescribe Zoloft instead of Prozac to his patients. A new patient, feisty Maggie Murdock (Anne Hathaway), an early onset Parkinson’s sufferer, walks in through the door and Randell is immediately drawn to her. Jamie and Maggie’s rollercoaster romance begins with a first date that Randell sets up a date which ends up with them going to bed together.
The emotional territory and style of this film is familiar enough. A free-wheeling, confident young man who is forced to mature after falling for a beautiful young woman who is stricken with chronic illness… Some uninhibited torrid sex scenes….The coming together, breaking apart and coming together again…
The story comes across authentically with the direction and performances strong. In the end, the way that Zwick’s film looks how chronic illness impacts on relationships and its satirical look at the power of the drug industry in America, resonant more than the the rather predictable love story.
