Rate Film!: 'Love & other Drugs' - My Review!

Rate Film!: 'Love & other Drugs' - My Review!: "Maggie (Hathaway) is an alluring free spirit who won't let anyone - or anything - tie her down. But she meets her match in Jamie (Gyllenha..."

'Love & other Drugs' - My Review!

Maggie (Hathaway) is an alluring free spirit who won't let anyone - or anything - tie her down. But she meets her match in Jamie (Gyllenhaal), whose relentless and nearly infallible charm serve him well with the ladies and in the cutthroat world of pharmaceutical sales. Maggie and Jamie's evolving relationship takes them both by surprise, as they find themselves under the influence of the ultimate drug: love.  (imdb)

This was such a treat and a really nice way to end a weekend. To be honest, 30 seconds into the movie I thought I was going to hate it because the opening scene was a bit corny and cringe worthy and I was left a bit disinterested.  The opening scene is when we are first introduced to Jamie (Jake Gyllenhaal).  He is working in an electrical store selling state of the art TVs, radios, cameras etc and he just instantly comes across so far-fetched, over the top and unlikeable and the frustrating thing is we are meant to believe that everyone loves him!  He is a number one sales man and his ‘fun and flirty’ personality (even with the pensioners) makes him so irresistible. I got this all inside 1-2minutes! FORTUNATELY, this was all a bit of a knee jerk reaction and only 5mins later, I was getting hooked. Phew!

The fun starts when we are introduced to Jamie’s family, namely his brother Josh, played hilariously by Josh Gad.  He reminds me of Zack Galifianakis portrayal of ‘Alan’ in the brilliant ‘The Hangover’.  He was just so funny and completely mortifying as a character and he provided many a laugh out loud moment throughout the movie.  Jake and Josh definitely bounced well off each other and there was an obvious comedy attraction between the two of them.

The introduction of Anne Hathaway’s character Maggie kind of sets the scene for her on screen antics throughout the rest of the movie in that 60 seconds onscreen she bares her bare breast (albeit to have a medical check-up).  There are lots of bare breast scenes from Anne Hathaway!  Long gone are the days of ‘The Princess Diaries’, as Hathaway has definitely grown up and has embraced the leading woman role with a lot of enthusiasm – and this means baring a lot of flesh.  Forgive me if I sound like I’m making out that all she did was get her kit off because this is not my intention (although she did).  Hathaway demonstrated her fantastic acting abilities in that she had to cover comedy, sex and emotional drama all in one movie.  She succeeded and she was very believable.  

There was never any doubt as to whether there was going to be any onscreen chemistry between Hathaway’s character Maggie and Gyllenhaal’s Jamie.  The two characters seemed well suited because of their good looks, feistiness and outlook on life.  Although they both have their own battles to face, they are drawn to each other because they recognize that they need one another in order to help fight these battles. This lends itself to a bit of a rollercoaster ride of emotions which both actors captured extremely well and in a very believable way.

The casting in this movie was great and it was a treat to have appearances by the brilliant Hank Azaria and Oliver Platt.  The music was also good although strange at times e.g. it was meant to be set in 1996, so I don’t know what Belinda Carlisle’s ‘Heaven is a place on earth’ was doing in there?

 All in all I really enjoyed this movie and it definitely let me feeling good.  I liked the characters and the love story but the biggest selling point for me was the laughter that Josh Gad provided me.  I now want to see more of his movies – especially if he does that ugly crying again!

Rating: 7.5/10