Secondhand Reviews: "Love And Other Drugs"

Rated R for strong language, sexual content, nudity and drug use.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

You can number on the fingers of one hand... hmm, actually, I'm thinking you can probably number on one FINGER the number of Hollywood movies that have used biting satire to take on the big pharmaceutical industry. That's what makes "Love And Other Drugs" so exciting in its early stages... because that's exactly what it does. One of the sleaziest of corporate interests is finally taking the filmic hit it has so richly deserved for so long... AND THEN, it becomes something entirely other. Which wouldn't have been quite so bad, if it had just been ONE something entirely other, but this film can't seem to decide which other it wants to be.

"Love And Other Drugs" is the story of a hot shot salesman (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) who takes a job with pharmaceutical giant Pfizer as essentially a traveling salesman... going around the country trying to persuade doctors to stop purchasing competitor's products like Prozac and go for the Pfizer equivalent instead. During his travels he meets and begins a purely sexual relationship with a young woman who's been diagnosed with early onset Parkinson's disease. Neither of them is looking for a real relationship, but that's what develops, and neither is sure how to deal with it. And then, Gyllenhaal's career really explodes when Pfizer introduces a popular new drug called Viagra...

Rarely have I seen a movie blow so perfect an opportunity as this one does. Director Edward Zwick hasn't often done satire in the past (he's better known for films like "Glory") but he hits just the right tone in the film's early scenes, capturing perfectly the absurdity of the pharmaceutical industry and its eagerness to sell its product regardless of whether that product is actually helping people. This COULD HAVE been the best satire in years. But then things start going downhill fast and the movie never really recovers. Occasionally, you'll get a moment when you think they're going to remember what the movie could have been, but no such luck. But I really didn't mind it becoming a love story so much... except that it had to become such a generic one.

How many of you out there have never seen a movie before in which a guy falls in love with a woman who has some kind of serious illness and has to figure out if the relationship is going to be worth it? Raise your hands... nobody? That's what I thought. And I'll bet there's just as good a chance that there isn't anyone who hasn't seen a film about an unrepentant sleazeball guy who is forced by circumstances to change his ways and become a decent person... after all, it's practically the only kind of movie Tom Cruise made for years. Well, Jake Gyllenhaal has the Cruise role in this one, and seems to me to have a startling lack of enthusiasm for anything he has to say or do in it. Not that one could blame him. Anne Hathaway as his love interest, on the other hand, is a wonder... in one of the best performances of her career, she's a real force of nature and full of fire... a character that was worthy of a more original movie. But one worthy star turn isn't enough, especially with such a weak script for her to work with. It's also kind of a shame that the late Jill Clayburgh had to make her farewell appearance in one single thankless scene as Gyllenhaal's mother (along with a wasted George Segal as his dad).

But I did say "several kinds of other", didn't I*? Yes, in addition to a generic romance that doesn't exactly blend with the social satire, this film also decides it wants to be a crude, wacky comedy kind of in the vein of a Judd Apatow movie, only nowhere near as funny. You know how those Viagra ads that talk about seeing a doctor if you have an erection lasting longer than four hours? Do you think maybe Gyllenhaal is going to experience that at some point, much to his awkward embarassment? Good guess! And do you think that he's going to be saddled with an incredibly rude, immature younger brother who winds up staying with him after his wife turns him out, and seems to want everyone to think he's the much less likable and talented relative Zach Galifianakis never had? Wow, you're really good... you ought to be writing these movies,. I mean, you couldn't likely do worse!

There was a great poet who once wrote "Of all the words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these... it might have been." Obviously he wasn't talking about the movies in general or this one in particular, but he might as well have been. Okay, so it doesn't want to be a sharp, observant satire... it could still have been a realistic (for once) love story with some intelligent dialogue. No? Well, it could still have been a genuinely funny, original comedy/ But no again. I do admire a movie makers who are ambitious, I seriously do. But sometimes you've got to realize your limitations (as Clint Eastwood almost said) and acknowledge that you can't be all the different things you want to be in one film. Case in point: Edward Zwick trying to make a movie that's nearly everything, and winding up with one that isn't much of anything.