“Love and Other Drugs” hopes to do for the pharmaceutical industry what last year’s “Up in the Air” did for the business of modern downsizing. They attempt to expose important problems the same way: By using love stories between damaged people, played by really pretty actors, they repackage the sad cases of victims of these corrupt systems. SClBThey even employ the same effective device. In poignant montages, real-life suffers bare witness to add authenticity. Sex and romance make depressing truths easier to swallow. The award-winning George Clooney picture worked both as heartfelt character piece and thoughtful social statement. The glossy “Drugs” doesn’t work very well as either, directed and co-written by sometimes heavy-handed filmmaker Ed Zwick (“The Last Samurai,” “Legends of the Fall”).
On the plus side, his good-looking stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway are younger and more naked, more often, in an otherwise deficient narrative. Gyllenhaal’s gorgeous body alone deserves some kind of a statuette.
At least “Drugs” tries “to be about something,” as film critics are fond of saying. But it includes distracting scenes of cutesy comedy (with a wacky/pervy brother played by Josh Gad) instead of sharply honed satire for the weighty issues raised. Then, weakened by the mood fluctuations, it fails to yield emotion out of the predictable relationship between a playboy pharmaceutical rep and a twentysomething Parkinson’s disease patient.
| IF YOU GO |
|
‘Love and Other Drugs’ 2 out of 5 stars |
| » Stars: Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway |
| » Director: Edward Zwick |
| » |
| Rated R for strong sexual content, nudity, pervasive language and some drug material |
| » Running time: 112 minutes |
The script is laden with contrivance. It’s not just the Hollywood ending or that random characters keep running into each other at the same bars and restaurants just when the plot needs it. But would a shallow commitment-phobe hook up with a neurotic woman knowing ahead that she has a debilitating degenerative illness?
Even if the material is based partly on a memoir, Jamie Reidy’s “Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman,” Gyllenhaal and Hathaway don’t make it convincing. They’ve each proven themselves better in the past, especially in their previous collaboration, “Brokeback Mountain.”
Here, the most interesting sequences depict the misplaced priorities and shady tactics of the drug industry, practices that ramped up in the 1990s, when this story unfolds. Doctors are pressured to prescribe medications for personal perks or out of loyalty to company hucksters, ignoring what’s best for patients. Profit from erectile dysfunction eclipses research and development to cure profound sickness.
And, for “Love and Other Drugs,” repeated bed scenes provide only a temporary treatment.
