Love & Other Drugs

Released: 2010
Memoir
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway
Director: Edward Zwick
Running Time: 112 minutes
Rated: R

The breakdown: This is based on a book written by Jamie Reidy about his real life titled, "Hard Sell: The Evolution of the Viagra Salesman."  In short, a young Parkinson's patient has a sexual relationship with a drug representative from Pfizer in Pittsburgh in the mid 1990's.


My gut reaction to this movie is that it sucked and that this guy had a really boring, empty life.  The day after I saw it, I feel the same way.  I won't waste too much time on this one.

Hathaway is 26 and suffers from Parkinson's as well as not having any health insurance.  Gyllenhaal comes from a family of doctors, but he doesn't want to succumb to family pressure to become a doctor so he starts the movie as a cheap electronics store salesmen.  It's obvious from the beginning this guy is good at two things.  Lying to anyone to make money and bedding down A LOT of women.  He gets fired from his job after he sleeps with the bosses wife in the store room and the boss finds them there. 
He starts as a medical rep for Pfizer and discovers he's very good at shmoozing who he needs to to get his sample's to the doctors.  Not that the doctors will prescribe his company's med's over some others.  The main fight is between Prozac and Zoloft (the latter being made by Pfizer).  During this time he wants to shadow a doctor so he can buy some time with him and try to convince him to start prescribing Zoloft over Prozac.  During this day, Hathaway's character comes in and he tells her that he's an intern.  She shows the doctor a spot on her breast and he says it's a spider bite.  After she leaves the office, he runs out to his car where she finds him with a trunk full of meds.  She hits him hard on the head with her bag and says he's scum for pretending to be an intern.  Their relationship is predictable in the sense that they like each other later, but hate each other first.  He keeps badgering her until they meet for coffee and soon after have sex.  She says she doesn't want a relationship and he thinks that's great.  Until they end up in a relationship and he falls in love with her.  She doesn't want him and rejects him.  Meanwhile, Viagra is released and suddenly Gyllenhaal is the BEST selling rep in the area and has great success.  He's miserable about his girlfriend leaving him though.  He gets a promotion at the end of the film to move to the biggest market in the area, Chicago.  He realizes this is not what he wants and he wants to give Hathaway one more try.  He quits his job and starts studying to be a doctor to try to cure Parkinson's.  Hathaway tells him she loves him, the end.
It's a terrible movie lacking any chemistry between the two lovers and there's way too much Anne Hathaway nakedness for my taste.  She looks emaciated and there's no good reason to show her naked in any of the scenes they did it in.  Gyllenhaal is naked a lot too but I don't mind that.  BUT what I do mind is that there's no real drama here.  Hathaway's character is self-pitying and mean, Gyllenhaal's character lacks any morals.  Both of them together are completely unlikable in this movie, though, Hathaway in all movies for me is completely unlikable and not qualified for most acting roles she gets.
Skip this movie entirely.

I give it 2 out of 5 stubs for Gyllenhaal's naked body, and for the supporting actors being good.