Love and Other Drugs

UK Release: 29th December 2010

Watched on Recorded TV: Monday 6th May 2013

Rating: 15

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance

Runtime: 1hr 42mins

IMDb Plot Synopsis: Maggie (Hathaway) is an alluring free spirit who won't let anyone - or anything - tie her down. But she meets her match in Jamie (Gyllenhaal), whose relentless and nearly infallible charm serve him well with the ladies and in the cutthroat world of pharmaceutical sales. Maggie and Jamie's evolving relationship takes them both by surprise, as they find themselves under the influence of the ultimate drug: love.

My Review: I’ve had a hankering to see this film since it came out and so I was excited to see it come up in the TV schedules. Starring the wonderful Anne Hathaway and the gorgeous Jake Gyllenhaal, the film sees the two of them begin a relationship after meeting in a doctors appointment for Maggie (Hathaway). Jamie (Gyllenhaal) is there as a drug rep and the first section of the film sets up this character as a great salesman who, after losing his job, falls into training for a big drug company. Jamie seems nice, a little immature, but a generally good person and so it interesting to follow the gradual change in him from when he meets Maggie. 

We don’t know she’s sick to begin with, but anyone who has seen the trailer or heard anything about the film knows that Maggie is suffering from Parkinson’s disease. There relationship is then obviously put under a lot of strain and while the film still tries to be a rom-com, it veers into a lot more serious territory. It can be heart-breaking and emotional in some scenes and then tonally completely wrong and insensitive. 

Ultimately it crashed and burned in the last act, which was a shame. The two had built such great chemistry and the characters felt very well fleshed out (especially for a romance movie!), but the ending felt completely stiff and not like the characters which we had been made to empathise with the last hour and a half or so. It went from being great and full of heart, to a cliched (obviously written by a man) Hollywood movie which failed to resonate realistically. It’s a shame as it had so much potential. 

I still loved the majority of the film; I just think it was clouded by the ending which I feel didn’t do it justice.

Score: 7.5/10