Love and Other Drugs (Edward Zwick, 2010): USA

Reviewed by Kyle Calbreath. Viewed at Paseo Nuevo Theater, Santa Barbara, CA

Viagra makes everything harder; this includes watching the new film Love and Other Drugs And while may provide hours of lasting pleasure this film just lasted hours. Without any pleasure.

Love and Other Drugs follows a med school burn out, Jamie (Jake Gyllenhaal), who is now beginning in the pharmaceutical sales business. He meets Maggie (Anne Hathaway) in a medical practice where she proceeds to list of a number of meds claiming she has Parkinson’s. It almost appears she is lying to score meds. She then removes her boob. She and Jamie meet, they hook up, try to do the hump buddy thing but end up falling in love. He makes it big when Viagra is invented. And yes she does actually have Parkinson’s and no this does not make for a good tear jerker.

While Jake and Anne are two very charming and charismatic actors, their portrayal of two reluctant love struck opposites did nothing to excite my brain or body. In fact if I wanted to see Gyllenhaal shirtless or half nude for the whole movie, I would have rented “Prince of Persia.” Hathaway and Gyllenhaal are both often naked, which makes sense because for the first act and half of the second they are just banging. Then they start to have feelings and a costume designer was hired. Still I must say Gyllenhaal and Hathaway have two of the best sets of puppy and doe eyes in the business.

Let’s talk about sex seeing as this is a film based in the act. The scenes were not hot, romantic, raw, passionate or graphic. It looked like two water warped boards lying in bed. I could have made a better sex scene with myself, my hand and my computer.

The film making was as name brand boring as the drugs they were selling. Generic stock shots of some unrecognizable mid-west city, in Ohio I believe they said. Maggie is the cliché of an artist who lives in an open air loft and works in a coffee shop. How often has this been seen? Often times it almost appeared as if the camera where attached to the top of some kind of stick, nailed to the floor and the zoom button removed making it only capable of capturing impersonal medium shots. This coming from the director of Legends of the Fall and The Last Samurai.

The scripting and dialogue seemed awkward but not as if it were suppose to be that way like in some Strangers with Candy episode. Awkward as in the lines were forced from the mouths of the actors like they were being punched in the gut, heaving to be cute and colorful.

Editing seemed slow. I looked at my watch more than twice and when it hit the hour and a half mark I turned to my friend and said “this is awful.”  The film ended at two hours long. My leg fell asleep in the theater that had a rake so low I thought I was sitting in a trench.

At the end of the film, should you call it that, I was in need of both a Zoloft and a Viagra. I left feeling depressed, angry, and sad that my friend had just spent $18 to get us tickets and more than a little flaccid.

About this entry

You’re currently reading “Love and Other Drugs (Edward Zwick, 2010): USA,” an entry on Student Film Reviews

Published:
12.02.10 / 7pm
Category:
Films