Blu-Ray Review: ‘Love and Other Drugs’ With Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway

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CHICAGO – An unusual new theme in the American romantic comedy is the couple who starts with sex and ends with love a la “No Strings Attached” and the recent “Love and Other Drugs” with Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway, now on DVD and Blu-ray. Critic Patrick McDonald HATED the film, putting it on his worst of the year, which I think may be a little harsh, but it’s a definite disappointment given the talent involved. Those of you looking for a romantic comedy can do better and so can the stars of this failed one.

HollywoodChicago.com Blu-Ray Rating: 2.0/5.0
Blu-Ray Rating: 2.0/5.0

Director Edward Zwick (“Defiance,” “Blood Diamond”) tells the unusual love story of Jamie (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Maggie (Anne Hathaway). The former is a pharmaceutical rep who sells better living through drugs with his charming ways. He meets Maggie, a free-spirited artist who sexually charges Jamie but refuses to go for anything deeper in no small part due to the fact that she has Parkinson’s Disease. Can the two keep it no strings attached or will they get emotionally involved? Have you seen a movie before?

Love and Other Drugs was released on Blu-Ray and DVD on March 1st, 2011
Love and Other Drugs was released on Blu-Ray and DVD on March 1st, 2011
Photo credit: Fox Home Video

Anne Hathaway is stunningly beautiful (and, as she mentioned during the Oscars, quite often naked) and totally convincing. Jake Gyllenhaal has screen charisma that allows him to be watchable even as the films around him often fall apart (“Redacted,” “Prince of Persia”). “Love & Other Drugs” is proof that two talented young stars can’t make a movie work if the script doesn’t and if the director never gets a handle on what he’s trying to do. What is “Love and Other Drugs”? Is it a wacky comedy? Is it a modern romance? A commentary on the pharmaceutical industry? A melodrama? A commentary on modern sexual freedom given the movie’s copious nudity?

Love and Other Drugs was released on Blu-Ray and DVD on March 1st, 2011
Love and Other Drugs was released on Blu-Ray and DVD on March 1st, 2011
Photo credit: Fox Home Video

It ends up being none of the above. It has almost no personality, bouncing from moment to moment without cohering into anything memorable. I liked what Hathaway and Gyllenhaal do in the picture enough to keep it away from my bottom ten unlike Mr. McDonald but this is another misstep for Zwick, who hasn’t delivered in some time. Zwick never finds the tone here. It’s not funny. It’s not romantic. And the manipulative final act is a real misstep. Zwick wants to make a modern romantic comedy not unlike “Jerry Maguire” or even a player-learns-a-lesson comedy a la “Up in the Air,” but he doesn’t have Cameron Crowe as a writer and the script simply doesn’t click. And the less said about the awful performance by Josh Gad, the better.

In the end, I didn’t find “Love & Other Drugs” as loathsome as some critics perhaps because I had lowered expectations and I genuinely liked Gyllenhaal and Hathaway. Unlike some disasters (“Bride Wars,” for example), it’s easy to see what they saw here. There could have been a quality romantic dramedy. But no one figured out which pill to take to make it happen.

Special Features:
o Deleted Scenes
o Love & Other Drugs: An Actor’s Discussion
o Beautifully Complex: Anne Hathaway is Maggie
o Reformed Womanizer: Jake Gyllenhaal is Jamie
o Selling Love & Other Drugs

“Love & Other Drugs” stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, Oliver Platt, Josh Gad, Gabriel Macht, and Hank Azaria. It was directed by Edward Zwick and was released on Blu-ray and DVD on March 1st, 2011. It is rated R and runs 112 minutes.

HollywoodChicago.com content director Brian Tallerico

By BRIAN TALLERICO
Content Director
HollywoodChicago.com
brian@hollywoodchicago.com

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