Buried under the tradition rom-com formula of “Love & Other Drugs,” there’s a heartwarming film that’s better than it ought to be. It features likable performances: Anne Hathaway as a young woman stricken with Parkinson’s and Jake Gyllenhaal as a hot-shot pharmaceutical salesman who enjoys all the perks, but was probably never in it for the money. I can’t recall the last time I’ve seen a romantic comedy that didn’t set up quirky but almost perfect characters, their films working because we wanted to see them together but never exploring their pain. However, by the end of this film—directed with heart by “The Last Samurai’s” Edward Zwick—we see a film that tries harder. It’s not charm or theatrics that win the day, but vulnerability.
Built from more serious material, it would have been easy for “Love & Other Drugs” to become a melodrama like any of a handful of Nicholas Sparks films, most notably “A Walk to Remember.” Except Zwick and writers Charles Randolph and Marshall Herskovitz remember they are making a rom-com, but also paint their characters as adults who know the landscape. Gyllenhaal plays Jamie, something of the black sheep of his family who once had the potential to go to med school, but was held back due to ADHD. A disappointment to his physician father, it’s no surprise he becomes at first a womanizer (he is good at something) and then a pharmaceutical rep. He starts succeeding when his company, Pfizer, creates Viagra. After all, who better than him could sell a sex drug?
Hathaway and Gyllenhaal Are Likable
As Maggie, Hathaway is written beautifully as well, and when she agrees to hook up with Jamie after an untoward encounter, she’s up-front about what she wants: sex, and no messy attachments. She keeps him at bay with statements like, “I’ll be disappointed if you turn out to not be a shithead,” etc. She’s had a failed relationship before with the wrong man who viewed her disease as pity (Gabriel Macht), and she doesn’t want it again. Hathaway sells the character to us with wit and realism. She makes us believe she’s a fiercely independent woman with walls all the way up, but not in a way that begs a knight in armor to break them down. Smartly, in “Love & Other Drugs,” she does the opposite.
The movie is full of the familiar stuff. Zwick marches us down scenes of Jamie training for his new job at Pfizer after an opening mintage that shows him able to sell any piece of low-end electronics equipment—and bed any woman—with seeming ease. Probably because he think so low of himself, he can deliver any line to any woman with the zeal of detaching himself from the situation and his knowledge of the way it works. As his Pfizer mentor Bruce trains him (a semi-wasted Oliver Platt), the machinations of schmoozing one doctor’s office (Hank Azaria, great here) lead to success for Jamie. He’s on the fast track to Chicago, which Bruce dangles before him as a prize full of culture, women, and riches.
A Rom-Com that Tries Harder
The scenes between Jamie and Maggie are the meat of the movie, and the way Jamie comes to the realization that he loves somebody for the first time is written with dead perfection. It occurred to me watching this film once again what an absolute talent Gylenhaal is. “Love & Other Drugs” was four years before “Nightcrawler” and five years before Anton Fuqua’s “Southpaw,” but he’s as skilled as ever. Equally skilled is Hathaway, who charmed audiences with her performances in “Interstellar” (deeply believing in love) and “Les Miserables” as the epitome of pain and suffering. She’s relatable and likable here, dispelling any helplessness a less intelligent film would make of her condition.
Amidst this, however, “Love & Other Drugs” is keen to make observations on the greed and avarice of the pharmaceutical industry (Jamie’s orientation at Pfizer the most egregious) and the for-profit American healthcare system in a way I found refreshing. I also like that the film used a real company and real drugs (Zoloft, Xanax, Viagra) instead of basking the proceedings in anonymity. A scene that makes everything stick the hardest is when Maggie—great at looking after others but not herself—takes a group of elderly people on a bus trip to Canada to get medications at a rate they can afford due to the high cost in the U.S. I can’t remember the last time a rom-com made such intricate points. We’ve already seen Jamie knows the harm of some of the drugs—he points out suicidal ideation in teenagers taking Zoloft—which makes the proceedings more believable.
Convention, but Welcome
The ups and downs of Maggie and Jamie’s relationship is of course built on familiar material. They will bond, they will fight, and one or both will attempt to push the other way before the end. A sad scene of a Parkinson’s caregiver at a conference telling him to run puts the seed in Jamie’s head. Perhaps her own expectations and feelings of inadequacy put the seed in Maggie’s. A fight the two have in her apartment is real and hurtful. It’s resolution, though, defies convention. As does the film’s ending. Sure, it induced the obligatory chase scene and the obligatory speeches. However, this time I felt it. Both Jamie and Maggie have carried years of hurt. There’s no good guy and bad guy in the situation, just people trying to push through trauma to be with each other. Gyllenhaal’s closing words touched me, as did Maggie’s fight. Letting go is harder than fighting, a point Zwick and the film’s writers depict well.
“Love & Other Drugs” is not a perfect movie. It’s conventional, the story of its lead on an arc from denial to self-discovery along with the usual cliched ending. However, this time it felt more truthful. The movie works because we want Maggie and Jamie to be tougher, and believe they are good for each other. The supporting cast—especially Hank Azaria as a thoughtful doctor and Josh Gad as Jamie’s brother—make this is fun movie, along with an ending we could all use more of in today’s cynical day and age.
