Edward Zwick"s "Love and Other Drugs" mirrors the cutthroat peddling of prescription drugs among drug reps (drug agents), and the way rival drug companies proceed with overboard tactics to win over difficult physicians' favors! But at the heart of this competitive environment is an unusual affection between serial womanizer Jamie Randall (Jake Gyllenhaal) and early-onset Parkinsons patient Maggie Murdock (Anne Hathaway) who both pretend that what they have is just exceptional sexual chemistry and none else in matters of affection.
The flick is set at the advent of the blue pill Sildenafil (Viagra) and the rise of Zoloft as an anti-depressant and effectively takes us into the world of Jamie who badly needs to succeed (he's the blacksheep in a family of over-achievers). With lots of eye-popping nudity buoying up the cinematic canvas, the story almost wavers its focus on the more pertinent issue on relationship investments which was readily dealt with at the latter part of the story. From a very flaky, albeit charming start, Jamie and Maggie's romantic chronology soon turns into "Lorenzo's Oil" territory before briskly shifting into something hopeful and inspiring. Yes, med reps in the real world can become physicians. LOL
Gyllenhaal and Hathaway boil, crackle, fizzle and conflagrate the screen with their charm and chemistry. And if the peekaboo nudities won't have you palpitating until you're blue, you better get those beta-blockers ready. Don't say we didn't warn you!
Gyllenhaal conflagrates the screen with so much nudity, my screen had singes at the fringes.