The life of a cocky pharmaceutical sales rep turns around when he falls for a wild child with Parkinson’s disease.
Glossy Hollywood romcoms aren’t typical Talking Animal Blug fodder. Checking out Love and Other Drugs, from Edward Zwick, a director with a pretty good track record, featuring Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway, two actors who have impressed in recent years, was a calculated risk. That didn’t really work out too well.
The film isn’t especially funny, a slight problem for a comedy, and it tackles the subject of Parkinson’s with all of the weight of a hummingbird’s feather. The attempt to add a serious issue to the mix undermines the comedy and, crow barred into an otherwise light-hearted film, cheapens the issue itself, culminating in highly compromised drama. Hathaway and her gratuitously frequently exposed boobs do their best with what they are given and Gyllenhaal looks incredibly uncomfortable in places, again, not helped by rather timid, contrived material.
A huge proportion of romantic comedies rely too little on story and so heavily on attractive young stars and, unfortunately, Love and Other Drugs continues that tradition.
2nd Jan 2011 | Official site | On IMDb
