Love and Other Drugs
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, Josh Gad, Oliver Platt Director: Edward Zwick Category: IIB
Set in a not-so-distant past when the world was in bloom - an age of 'the greatest creation of wealth' in modern history, one character would say - Love and Other Drugs is a story of a misguided young man attaining fame and fortune by peddling a product shaped to 'help better the world' by bringing people closer together, literally. While its zeitgeist-probing premise might seem similar to The Social Network, Edward Zwick's film flatlines early. After its first interesting half-hour that takes aim at the unscrupulous excesses of modern-day salesmanship, the film flounders in sentimentalised schmaltz. The film's initial highs only heighten the humdrum that follows.
Based on the autobiography of a sales executive who made a fortune peddling prescription medication, Love and Other Drugs begins as a biting satire of the ethics (or the lack of them) in the pharmaceutical business. Medical school dropout Jamie Randall (Jake Gyllenhaal) is the embodiment of the cynicism ingrained in the business, hailing from a family that hold no qualms about trading principles for financial gain. After being fired from his job at an electrical goods store for having sex with the owner's girlfriend (in the shop's backroom, no less), Jamie tries to start anew at drug manufacturer Pfizer, where he is inducted into the routine of smooth-talking receptionists, nurses, doctors and patients and into the worthiness of the company's latest inventions.
Until then the film holds out well, taking many leaves out of Jamie Reidy's book, Hard Sell: the Evolution of a Viagra Salesman. Zwick chronicles his anti-hero's ease in conning his way to success - whether in bedding receptionists, befriending (and bribing) doctors, or banishing rival products through a sly swipe on the medication shelves.
As Jamie (Randall, that is) begins to date Maggie (Anne Hathaway, left with Gyllenhaal), a young woman afflicted with Parkinson's disease, the film's raison d'etre wavers and finally caves in on itself. While Gyllenhaal and Hathaway are quite a good pairing, their on-screen relationship is cliched. Starting out as two rugged and cynical individuals who see their bond as purely physical, their sang-froid finally dissolves as the playboy discovers something more beyond sex, while the pessimistic patient overcomes her bitterness to embrace true love. Adding in odd bits about advocacy of patients' rights and Big Pharma tyranny only heightens the gooey romance which Zwick places at the film's core. The conclusion that all one needs is love to tackle any predicament is as tacky as putting an erection-related gag into a film about selling Viagra.
Love and Other Drugs opens today
