Jamie Randall (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a serial ladies man bedding girl after girl without the worry of feelings or love. That is until he meets Maggie Murdock (Anne Hathaway) a free spirit, with a hidden secret (She has early onset Parkinsons!), who is also looking for no strings attached sex. But of course this being a romantic comedy Jamie soon catches feelings, which forces both of them to confront the realities of Maggie’s illness. Oh the whole thing is set in the early years of Viagra too – not that that has much bearing on the whole thing.
Romantic comedies are all about the onscreen chemistry of the couple, and luckily Gyllenhaal and Hathaway share great on-screen chemistry and their sex scenes often border on the raunchy side. Indeed their nakedness is really the drawcard for the whole movie – hey look its Anne Hathaway’s boobs!
As fragile Maggie Hathaway is tremendous, subtly playing the signs of Maggie’s Parkinsons without going overboard (she doesn’t go full retard as Kirk Lazarus would say). Director Edward Zwick does use the parkinson subplot for emotional weight, and tears, managing to mine both by featuring real life sufferers discussing their conditions. However while the reality of carefree Jamie possibly having to one day become Maggie’s full time carer is touched on it is dismissed quickly so as not to spoil the happy ending (oh come on it’s a romantic comedy for gosh sakes…).
Gyllenhaal’s Jamie is very lovable despite his womanising ways, and a lot of the films comedy comes from his time spent selling Viagra, with co-worker Bruce (Oliver Platt), to doctors via their ‘responsive’ female reception staff. Josh Gad as Jamie’s brother Josh also provides some big laughs – his use of video material is one of the films best moments.
In the end I actually wanted to like Love & Other Drugs a lot more than I did, and I expected it to be a lot funnier than it was. It’s nice to see a romantic comedy with substance, but frankly it could have been better –naked A list starts having fake (but sexy) sex onscreen does not a movie make.
3 of 5 Stars
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