LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS is based on Jamie Reidy's highly regarded novel 'Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesmen' and as adapted for the screen by Charles Randolph, Marshall Herskowitz and Edward Zwick (who also directs). It is a little jewel of a film. If the portion of the film that deals far too long with a silly Radio City Music Hall show of Pfizer Pharmaceuticals training program bores the audience (it should have been severely edited for many reasons), it is worth the wait for the actual romance story that follows.
Jamie Randall (Jake Gyllenhaal) can't hold a job, preferring to focus on womanizing, much to the disdain of his wealthy obese brother Josh (Josh Gad), and his parents (George Segal and Jill Clayburgh in a role that was to be her last). Jamie best friend Bruce (Oliver Platt) joins Jamie in becoming a pharmaceutical rep for Pfizer and the two are placed on the road to push Zoloft and Zithromax, finding that the market is hoarded by Trey Hannigan (Gabriel Macht), an Eli Lily salesman selling Prozac. Jamie encounters Trey in the office of Dr. Knight (Hank Azaria), studies Trey's success and his own failure, and in the process encounters a patient of Dr. Knight, the free spirited gorgeous Maggie Murdock (Anne Hathaway) who has been with both Trey and Dr. Knight. Jamie's lack of success pushing Zoloft suddenly reverses when Pfizer comes out with Viagra: Jamie is a natural to be the leading salesman for this new enhancing drug - or is he? There is a strange chemistry that develops between Jamie and Maggie and despite their unlikely qualifications as relationship candidates, each finds in the other the qualities that turn wild one nighters into a solid love affair. Maggie has Parkinsonism and that aspect alters the way each approach the relationship. But it is the magic of how this blossoms into one the screen's best romances that is the gift of the film.
The story is frequently disrupted with sidebars that are supposed to provide comic relief but in the end simply take up too much space away from Jamie and Maggie. Had the film been edited to clean its shelves the way Jamie cleaned the physicians' sample shelves of Prozac the total product would have been even better. What the film brings into focus is the enormously maturing talents of Gyllenhaal and Hathaway: they may just be the next great Hollywood silver screen couple. This is 'a fine (and sensitive) romance' and well worth watching.
Grady Harp
Jamie Randall (Jake Gyllenhaal) can't hold a job, preferring to focus on womanizing, much to the disdain of his wealthy obese brother Josh (Josh Gad), and his parents (George Segal and Jill Clayburgh in a role that was to be her last). Jamie best friend Bruce (Oliver Platt) joins Jamie in becoming a pharmaceutical rep for Pfizer and the two are placed on the road to push Zoloft and Zithromax, finding that the market is hoarded by Trey Hannigan (Gabriel Macht), an Eli Lily salesman selling Prozac. Jamie encounters Trey in the office of Dr. Knight (Hank Azaria), studies Trey's success and his own failure, and in the process encounters a patient of Dr. Knight, the free spirited gorgeous Maggie Murdock (Anne Hathaway) who has been with both Trey and Dr. Knight. Jamie's lack of success pushing Zoloft suddenly reverses when Pfizer comes out with Viagra: Jamie is a natural to be the leading salesman for this new enhancing drug - or is he? There is a strange chemistry that develops between Jamie and Maggie and despite their unlikely qualifications as relationship candidates, each finds in the other the qualities that turn wild one nighters into a solid love affair. Maggie has Parkinsonism and that aspect alters the way each approach the relationship. But it is the magic of how this blossoms into one the screen's best romances that is the gift of the film.
The story is frequently disrupted with sidebars that are supposed to provide comic relief but in the end simply take up too much space away from Jamie and Maggie. Had the film been edited to clean its shelves the way Jamie cleaned the physicians' sample shelves of Prozac the total product would have been even better. What the film brings into focus is the enormously maturing talents of Gyllenhaal and Hathaway: they may just be the next great Hollywood silver screen couple. This is 'a fine (and sensitive) romance' and well worth watching.
Grady Harp