Love and Other Drugs (2010–112 mins). J. Gyllenhal, A. Hathaway

As if “How Do You Know” wasn’t a missleading trailer and marketing misdirection enough, here comes “Love and Other Drugs”! Yet another movie that leads us to believe it’s a laugh a minute romantic comedy. Then here comes the drama train. Again here we have a primary romantic drama that has some comedy elements thrown in.

Jamie (Gyllenhal) is a hotshot drug rep with a quick wit and a perfect line for everything, oh and did I mention he is a machine with women? He meets and eventually falls for equally aloof and fun woman named Maggie (Hathaway). The movie takes place in the mid 90’s when the FDA hadn’t yet clamped down on all the perks and crazy kickbacks/bribes that drug reps could give to doctors. This makes for some funny story points, espeically if you know anything about the profession of drug reps/medicine/pharmacy and how out of control this whole time was for those companies. The drug companies had more money then they knew what to do with, they were throwing it around like mad and doing some real delorable things to get doc’s attention. Jamie is the perfect match for this type of job. He can charm the pants off of any receptionist/nurse and basically sell doctor’s their own shoes back to them. Yet in Maggie he has met his match. She’s a straight shooter who can see through his BS, but finds the real guy underneath. But here’s the rub. Maggie has early onset Parkinson’s disease. She’s also got a bad case of self loathing/ independency to go along with it. It’s this “I can handle the world all by myself, and screw you no one will help me!”, attitude that they throw in there that gives us all the drama of the movie. (Parkinson’s isn’t a spoiler it’s reveiled the first scene we meet Maggie so don’t feel like you know too much). That’s basically it in a nutshell. We are exposed for about 25 to 45 mins to comedy and aloofness of it all, and then they slowly start to drop the bomb of drama on us. Please get your crappy drama out of my comedy. Stop trying to make a perfectly good rom-com base into a vast masterpiece of drama and love. You have essentially drained the life from the movie and make it into a type of downer. The only source of comedy we get after about the midway point of the movie is Jamie’s idiot brother who is seperated from his wife addicted to porn. He’s funny but it’s an obvious attempt by the writers to keep us interested and upbeat with his funny lines.

This is also the movie that thoroughly takes Anne Hathaway’s goodie goodie reputation and puts it in a blender chops it to little pieces and throws it over a cliff. We end up seeing her naked in this movie so much that we almost become immune to it. Sure they use this to try and prove a point about the character but it seems extreme at times but hey who am I to complain about Hathaway’s boobs. It does however, come accross as a gimmick and takes away a little bit from it all.

Again I am more upset about the miss-direction marketing then I am the quality of the movie. It’s a good story and a decent watch. I hate that we are lead to think this is a knee slapping romantic comedy when it’s another romance drama with a spattering of comedy. Everyone is good in it, even the supporting players like Hank Azaria and Oliver Platt.

Verdict—> It’s a decent watch, but be warned, don’t get this b/c you want to see a romantic comedy. Watch it knowing it’s a pretty good movie but it’s more drama with comedy then rom-com. So don’t get it thinking it’s a date night rom-com, it could be a fine couples movie but just be aware what you are getting into.  I will put a decent recommendation on it and put it a slight tick above “How Do You Know”. It’s a bit more dramay th

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