Love & Other Drugs

When Hollywood addicted audiences all over the world realized the movie Love and Other Drugs was about to be released the first thought that crossed their minds was that it was going to be another silly and unrealistic romantic comedy where the main characters realize they love each other for no apparent reason and in the final scene of the movie they rush to grab a taxi in order to get to the person they love as soon as possible. Well, once you see it, you realize that Love and Other Drugs..is like no Other American romantic comedies – although actually classified as belonging to the genre.

It is set back in the 1960s and it tells the story of a young fascinating man, Jamie, that begins his career as a pharmaceutical sales representative. He is going to change the life of many unhappy people since he is about to release a brand new drug called Viagra – and I guess we all know what I mean when I say that it has changed many lives. But if there is a life that is really going to be subverted is the protagonist’s life as soon as he runs into the female protagonist, Maggie. Jamie is handsome and successful, he can have as many women as he wants but when he meets Maggie, who suffers from early onset Parkinson's disease, he will realize that none of all the relationships that he had were real. So they fall in love and they  begin a relationship as a normal couple although they have to face many difficulties: Maggie’s illness is getting worse and Jamie is totally unprepared to face a long and painful voyage next to her.  Real dramas that occur in real lives have been treated by the director as every couple should do. Love sometimes can be like an illness, it requires a lot of patience and time to be “cured”, to be perfect and sometimes there is no drug that can prevent you from suffering.

The director  Edward Zwick not only has made a great cinematic work out of the novel Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman by Jamie Reidy; moreover he has chosen probably the best couple ever seen on screen: Jake Gyllenhaal as Jamie and Anne Hathaway as Maggie. Beyond Gyllenhaal’s  brilliant performance, it is necessary to underline the remarkable acting by Anne Hathaway. Both were nominated for many awards, she won the Satellite Award 2010 for Best actress. It has been a remarkable change in her career since the audience had always associated her pretty face to those romantic comedies that I have mentioned above. She was probably accused of lack of talent since those kind of movie did not require much of it. Indeed her acting in Love and Other Drugs proved everyone to be wrong and the audience realized that behind her beautiful smile the strong character of a smart young woman is hidden.

If we mix the brilliance of the cast, with the importance of the themes that the story touches, a meaningful and engaging movie is what we get that I am sure that all the kind of audiences will appreciate.

Giulia Platania