117 Comments

1. Ed Uyeshima from San Francisco, CA, USA says:

   March 13, 2011 at 12:00 am

   Love and Pain and the Whole Enchilada in a Tonal Whiplash of a Dramedy

   To call this 2010 romantic dramedy uneven would be a severe
   understatement. It suffers from downright ADD as it moves from a
   snapshot of manic arrested development to pharmaceutical satire to
   near-porn to romantic comedy to medical melodrama. That the film was
   directed by Edward Zwick ("Glory") suddenly makes sense when you think
   about how he and fellow producer Marshall Hersokowitz created a
   similarly toned TV series, "thirtysomething", back in the late
   eighties. Both of them also co-wrote the screenplay along with Charles
   Randolph based on James Reidy's 2005 book, "Hard Sell" The Evolution of
   a Viagra Salesman". However, what works over several TV seasons doesn't
   work as well within a 112-minute running time. Fortunately, Zwick chose
   two attractive leads, Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway, to star in
   this basically schizophrenic movie, and both perform admirably under
   the circumstances.

   Beginning in 1996, the plot revolves around Jamie Randall, a young
   medical school drop-out just fired from a sales job at an electronics
   store. A typical commitment-phobe, he manages to land a job through his
   younger brother Josh, an obnoxiously wealthy dot-commer, as a
   pharmaceutical rep for Pfizer selling Zoloft and eventually Viagra.
   While accompanying an influential doctor on his rounds, Jamie meets
   Maggie Murdock, a pretty free spirit with early onset Parkinson's
   disease. They waste little time in having sex, an arrangement that
   suits both their situations and libidos. However, it's inevitable that
   one wants more out of the relationship, and Jamie convinces Maggie to
   take it to the next level. At a Parkinson's convention in Chicago, they
   come away with a more palpable sense of what the long-term effects of
   the disease will be on Maggie. This naturally tests their relationship
   as they face the prospect of her condition worsening.

   More at home than as "The Prince of Persia" in the sixth century B.C.,
   Gyllenhaal takes on a George Clooney-type role in Jamie with convincing
   self-assurance. Perhaps because "The Princess Dairies" will never
   entirely leave her screen persona (note her recent Oscar gig as
   evidence of her cheerleading tendencies), Hathaway does surprisingly
   well portraying a sexual hedonist keeping a deliberate emotional
   distance from everybody. The two banter sharply and handle their
   characters' sexual combustion with élan. When the film threatens to
   move into "Sweet November"-type melodrama, the actors avert the
   heart-tugging predictability with their emotional alertness. As the
   chubby younger brother, Josh Gad is as irritating as an evasive fly in
   an unessential role designed to provide intermittent comic relief but
   failing miserably in what amounts to a Jonah Hill impersonation.

   The other actors are fine but make mostly truncated appearances -
   Oliver Platt as a blustery Pfizer salesman, Hank Azaria as the seasoned
   go-between doctor, Gabriel Macht as a competing rep with anger
   management issues, George Segal and the late Jill Clayburgh as Jamie's
   concerned parents in an early and all-too-brief dining table scene.
   It's also worth noting that Steven Fierberg's sharp cinematography
   captures the various Midwest locations really well, and Steven
   Rosenblum's action-movie-style editing captures the manic energy Zwick
   appears to have wanted during the film's first half. The 2011
   DVD/Blu-Ray offers relatively few extras – about seven minutes of
   deleted scenes, the original theatrical trailer, and four quick
   featurettes ("Love & Other Drugs": An Actor's Discussion", "Beautifully
   Complex: Anne Hathaway is Maggie", "Reformed Womanizer: Jake Gyllenhaal
   is Jamie", and "Selling Love & Other Drugs" which features Reidy.
   Surprisingly, there is no education piece about Parkinson's disease, a
   missed opportunity.

   Reply

Leave a Reply

Click here to cancel reply.

Name:

Email:

Website:

Comment:

 

Security Code: