LATENT HUMANITY AT THE END OF THE 20TH CENTURY: a review of "Love And Other Drugs"

"LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS"
Based upon the novel Hard Sell: The Evolution Of A Viagra Salesman written by Jamie Reidy
Screenplay Written by Charles Randolph and Marshall Herskovitz & Edward Zwick
Directed by Edward Zwick
* ½ (one and a half stars)

At least they tried.

In all of the many concerns and complaints that I have shared with you concerning the status of modern American cinema, I have often lamented the times during which I have felt that the creative participants involved squandered their respective great fortunes at being visual storytellers by not even bothering to try and produce a work to the highest of their abilities. In addition to being a waste of talent, money and time, for the filmmakers and more importantly for the audience, I just cannot fathom why, oh why people would essentially thumb their collective noses at the chance to make a movie. As I stated in my year end reviews of 2010's “RED” and "Cop Out," placing the laconic performances of Bruce Willis firmly within my cross hairs, I will paraphrase those feelings to suit this over-reaching concept: For the money that these people are being paid, if they feel like slacking off once in awhile, that’s fine. Just DON’T MAKE A MOVIE! I can almost forgive a film that fails when the attempt is an honest one but when it doesn’t try, then why should I?

In the case of “Love And Other Drugs,” the latest film from Director Edward Zwick, I can say that the attempt to make a strong movie is an honest one. The film itself is filled with committed performances (although some to a detrimental degree-more on that later), a screenplay that does indeed contain complex characters, themes and dialogue that feels worked over and Zwick is certainly no hack when it comes to his directorial duties. Unfortunately, and despite all of the talent at work and more than willing to make an entertaining artistic statement filled with comedy, drama, heartache and cultural commentary, the stars were seriously not in alignment.

Set in 1996, “Love And Other Drugs” stars Jake Gyllenhaal in a performance of boundless (read: hyperactive) energy as Jamie Randall, a cocksure ne’er do well salesman, serial womanizer and family black sheep who becomes a pharmaceutical representative and rising star for the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer. While attempting to gain a foot in the door in the offices of Dr. Knight (Hank Azaria), via the constant wooing of the doctor’s female staffers, Jaime meets his romantic match in the form of the inimitable Maggie Murdock (Anne Hathaway), a patient currently in the throes of the early stages of Parkinson’s disease. Maggie, immediately sensing Jamie’s considerable sleaziness (especially after having had taken a considerable and sadly noticeable gaze at Maggie’s breasts while posing as a medical assistant to Dr. Knight), reads him the riot act in the parking lot after she physically cleans his clock. This particular altercation is of course designed to depict the obvious attraction between the two and also of course, it leads Jaime and Maggie into the most seemingly realistic next phase of their relationship: a bout of wild sex that only occurs in the movies with thrown clothes, vocal abandon and two sweaty bodies laying on the floor breathlessly.

One empty sexual tryst flows into another and before you can say “cliché,” Jaime brings over lunch, conversation and the seeds of a growing conscience, three things that the ferociously proud Maggie vehemently rebuffs fearing an inevitable rejection once the glow of great sex fades and the reality of her debilitating and ultimately, fatal health takes center stage. And then, there is the matter of a new sex drug called Viagra that has reached the pharmaceutical market, creating an account that would send Jamie into the sales stratosphere with a endlessly lucrative positioning Chicago waiting in the wings. But the power of love is a grand force, isn’t it? Especially as Jaime discovers his soul, Maggie brings down her walls and each allowing love to guide their way towards each other.

In many ways, “Love And Other Drugs” contains absolutely no surprises and delivers a love story that plays out exactly as you may think it will. Jaime grows more compassionate as Maggie’s health begins to fail thus forcing her to keep her barriers and boundaries upright while Jaime valiantly performs the requisite soul searching in regards to his abilities to discover the best part of himself for both of their sakes. Essentially, if you have seen a movie love story then you are more than prepared for what is on display in this particular film. As with the best films that utilize overly familiar material and motivations, everything succeeds or fails in the overall presentation. What is surprising about “Love And Other Drugs” is that beneath the overly slick and frivolous veneer, Zwick certainly does have more serious issues on his mind, which I do believe he actively tries to monkey wrench into the film.

One element that I particularly enjoyed was witnessing the tools of the aggressive sales trade. Wooing receptionists notwithstanding, Zwick tosses in sometimes violently competitive salesmen to dumping samples from competitors in the trash and replacing them with your own company’s samples, accosting doctors immediately from the moment they exit their vehicles for work and always distributing gifts of pens. All of that is very clever material. Additionally, Oliver Platt, who has now made a career of portraying lascivious corporate supporting characters, somehow makes his now trademark role work brightly once again as Jamie’s sales partner and mentor.

Zwick’s cultural commentary was also an element that I enjoyed seeing as he seems to be offering a lament for a society growing increasingly dependant upon they very medications that they are unable to pay for due to rising insurance and health care costs. Furthermore, through the character of Dr. Knight, we also see how people who had once aligned themselves into a world through altruistic intentions have, over time, lost their souls after having the business side drown out a once noble worldview. Also, in one of the film’s quieter sequences Jamie and Maggie make some heartfelt confession to each other through the usage of a video camera. Perhaps that was a nod to our current fixation with revealing our souls through the tools of media instead of face-to-face.

In regards to the love story, while the character arc of Jamie is, again, predictable, I do have to give credit to Hathaway and the screenplay for giving her character of Maggie Murdock a hefty amount of emotional layers to sift through. Maggie’s occupation is that of an artist meaning that she lives in one of those gorgeously designed movie lofts that you wonder how in the world she could ever possibly afford to live in yet she is poor enough that she makes routine bus trips to Canada to purchase her medication at affordable costs. Her prickliness is completely understandable and almost valiant as she knows her life’s inevitable trajectory and relinquishing the little emotional control she has over a man who has been habitually unreliable is certain reckless. I appreciated the weight given to her emotional struggle, as I typically enjoy movie love stories more when there is truly something real at stake.

And yet, I still gave this film a harshly negative rating.

Well, for one thing, I have been a huge fan of Edward Zwick and his creative partner Marshall Herskovitz’s work since my teen years as I was somewhat obsessed with their television program “thirtysomething” and I was deeply affected by “About Last Night,” their 1986 adaptation of David Mamet’s “Sexual Perversity In Chicago.” I was struck by the literary quality to the writing and the intensely throughout introspective nature they gave to their characters and their emotional battles as they constantly attempted to figure out their respective places with their respective worlds.

With “Love And other Drugs,” I was actually very excited to see Zwick return to a more contemporary urban setting in film after a series of more historically based David Lean epics like “Glory” (1989), “The Last Samurai” (2003) and “Blood Diamond” (2006). Much had been written at the time of the film’s release concerning the amount of nudity on display in “Love And other Drugs” (yes, dear readers, Hathaway is topless for several scenes while Gyllenhaal is in his all-togethers aside from a certain appendage). This large amount of nudity was a tactic utilized very well in “About Last Night,” and I was looking forward to viewing a real, adult relationship on screen from Zwick’s perspective again. Perhaps this was an aspect of his career coming full circle to a degree.

Zwick is a filmmaker who flourishes when he works with a larger storytelling canvas for his film and his television work. His series, which also included the wonderful “Once And Again” and the untouchable “My So-Called Life” unfolded like Dickensian novels while his films evoked the wide sprawling sweep of the epics that have obviously inspired him. Very sadly, “Love And Other Drugs” feels more than a little truncated and could have used more of the conceptual sprawl that has elicited his best work.

The film is simply a tonal disaster as it spends so much time working itself up into a frenzy, in just under two hours, that not much sticks firmly. Nearly everything, from the rapidly paced 1930’s styled dialogue, to the drama to the truly desperate comedy (mostly represented through the vastly overused and irritating presence of Josh Gad's pseudo Jack Black styled performance as Jamie’s wealthy, sad sack, perpetually horny older brother) feels supremely forced. It was as if Zwick had no idea of what he wanted his film to be: a light romantic comedy, a wrenching love story, a medical drama, a buddy comedy, a disease themed tear-jerker or whatever else he felt needed to be thrown into the pot. The briskness of this film just completely sabotaged his storytelling gifts.

George Segal and the late Jill Clayburgh make “blink and you miss them” appearances as Jamie’s parents and I could not help but to wonder just why these two screen legends were cast and just mot given anything to do. Was more material filmed and then left on the editing room floor? Whatever the reason, their presence was wasted.

Jake Gyllenhaal is an actor that, for some reason, I have never entirely warmed up to. Yes, he has delivered fine work throughout his young career especially in Ang Lee’s “Brokeback Mountain” (2005) and David Fincher’s “Zodiac” (2007) but too often in “Love And other Drugs,” he seems like a bouncing boy playing dress up when I really felt like I needed a mature adult holding the reins. And frankly, Anne Hathaway would eat him alive.

Speaking of Ms. Hathaway, and despite the mash note I wrote to her in my recollection of this year’s otherwise awful Oscar telecast, she is a young actress that has proven, time and again, that she has the acting range to be able to tackle a variety of parts. And although in “Love And Other Drugs,” she indeed gives it her all, somehow, I didn’t connect wither as I felt that she may have been directed to push harder than she really needed to. There was more than enough inherent drama that it didn’t need the hyperbole, which made for a relationship that kept me at arms length when it should have been drawing me inwards.

And for what I did enjoy with the love story there was much that I was severely disappointed by. Jamie and Maggie’s romance is a complex relationship that deserved so much better than it was given, especially as it functions as a tale of monogamy at the dawn of Viagra and the decline of morals and ethics in late 20th century adult relationships. Everything is just wrapped in pretty bows and to me, it just felt so unfair to these characters and their situation to sideline them with every movie love story cliché in the book.

Even the film’s climactic romantic admission was predictable and too terribly sugary sweet for me to believe. In fact, those final moments made me think back to my beloved “Jerry Maguire” (1996) and the now eternally famous and endlessly parodied “You complete me"/You had me at ‘Hello’” sequence. I think why that sequence has endured for so terribly long is not simply through the soulful acting of Tom Cruise and Renee Zellweger but also through Cameron Crowe’s unquestionable romanticism which was displayed via his “go for broke” screenwriting. That sequence spoke to every beat of my heart and that is a rarity for me with movie love stories. I was beyond moved and that film has earned a place as being of the most romantic films I have ever seen. Watching those pitiful moments in “Love And Other Drugs,” a sequence that contains a level of romanticism it just had to earned at all, it showed just how difficult those sorts of scenes are to pull off successfully.

Yet, as I stated at this review’s outset, I greatly appreciate the effort as they all tried their very best to deliver the goods. “Love And other Drugs” is a failure to me but it was an honest failure, made through the best intentions and a trove of talent on display.

Not every film can be a winner but as long as filmmakers keep trying and failing and trying again, I will gladly sit through disappointments like this one than soulless garbage no one involved ever believed in.