Love and Other Drugs

Love and Other Drugs - Dir. Edward Zwick (2010)

Sometimes I just don't understand the strange decisions made by Hollywood executives. Love and Other Drugs had all the makings of an interesting film centered on a very timely concept. The film was based on the non-fiction book, Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman, written by Jamie Reidy, a former pharmaceutical salesman. With health care being a hot button topic, it seems like the perfect time for an inside look at the pharmaceutical industry. Instead, the studio plays it safe and whitewashes the story into yet another banal romantic comedy.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays Jamie Randall, a med school dropout who has just been fired from his job in retail electronics after boning the boss's girlfriend in the stock room. Jamie quickly gets a job shilling medication with the corporate juggernaut known as Pfizer. In the pharmaceutical game, medical knowledge is hardly a necessity, but good looks and a winning personality are everything. A dizzying montage shows candidates memorizing sales pitches and dancing the Macarena at a garish orientation. Jamie aspires for the bigger market of Chicago, but gets the accounts in Iowa instead. There, he's to push Zoloft, an anti-depressant that is a distant second in sales to the more renowned Prozac. He shamelessly flirts with the receptionists to get his foot in the door and offers bribes to various doctors. Fortunes rise (pun slightly intended) with the creation of Viagra and Jamie leaps at the opportunity, "Who can sell a dick drug better than me?"

While pretending to be an intern, he meets Maggie Murdock (Anne Hathaway), a patient suffering from stage one Parkinson's disease. Jamie inadvertently glimpses her breast and gets pummeled in the parking lot when Maggie finds out he's a drug rep. Only in the movies does this ignite a star-crossed romance. At first, both parties are only interested in empty sex, but true feelings develop to complicate their relationship. Jamie worries about how he'll care for Maggie when her condition inevitably deteriorates while Maggie is concerned about holding Jamie's career back.

Love and Other Drugs feels like four or five different movies stitched together in a haphazard manner. The film starts off strong with an engaging first act that serves as a satire of the pharmaceutical industry. Once Maggie is introduced the story veers into the territory of a standard romantic comedy. When the Parkinson's subplot is emphasized, Other Drugs becomes a weepy melodrama similar to the all-time cheesy classic Love Story. The sentimental portion does provide one of the few genuine moments of the picture when Maggie leaves a medical convention for a support group for those afflicted with Parkinson's. Topping it all off is a heavy element of raunchiness straight out of the Apatow comedy playbook. The film's stars get naked frequently and there are the requisite boner jokes involving Viagra. They've also brought in Josh Gad, who acts like the love child of Jonah Hill and Jack Black, as Jamie's lazy brother. Every word out of his mouth is an annoying and horribly unfunny attempt at lowbrow humor. On the other hand, Gyllenhaal and his Brokeback Mountain beard Anne Hathaway are both good in the lead roles as is Gabriel Macht as a rival salesman. However, Judy Greer is underutilized as are George Segal and the late-Jill Clayburgh, who only appear in one scene as Jamie's parents.

Love and Other Drugs is a different kind of film from director Edward Zwick, who helmed Glory and The Last Samurai, but it fits right in with thirtysomething, the sappy and soapy television series he produced back in the early-90's. This is a completely disjointed affair that fails to find any semblance of balance between light comedy and heavy drama.

Rating: * ½ (*****)

Defiance

Defiance - Dir. Edward Zwick (2008)

James Bond, Sabretooth, and Billy Elliot team up to fight Nazis and save Jews. Sounds like a movie to me.

Comic book artist Art Spiegelman (author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus) coined the phrase ‘holo-kitsch’ for the sentimentalizing of the Holocaust in the popular media. There’s been a recent spate of films centered on the Holocaust and World War II from big-budget spectacles (Valkyrie) to arthouse fare (The Reader) with each one focusing on a single individual within the scope of a larger story. Defiance falls into the first category with plenty of action, pathos, and a cast of name talent. It tells the little-known story of the Bielski brothers who protected over 1200 Jews from the Nazis while hiding in the Belorussian forest.

Daniel Craig takes the lead as the eldest brother Tuvia. He and his younger brothers Zus (Liev Schreiber) and Asael (Jamie Bell) discover their parents have been murdered by the local police chief, a Nazi collaborator. They find their youngest brother Aron (George Mackay) hidden in the barn and look for refuge in the forest. There, they come across dozens of other Jews also hiding from the Germans. Soon, dozens grow into hundreds as everyone looks to Tuvia for guidance in their makeshift community. They build shelters and make some sort of life for themselves with a few of the men taking on “forest wives.” While Tuvia is primarily concerned with protecting those under his watch, Zus has a burning desire for vengeance. The brothers bitterly part as Zus joins up with a regiment of Russian soldiers in their strikes against Nazi forces.

Director Edward Zwick is familiar with films about the personal conflicts in a time of war or struggle. Looking at his body of work, Glory, The Last Samurai, Blood Diamond, you can see similar themes running throughout them. From a technical standpoint, there isn’t much wrong with the picture. The film is well crafted and well acted. The cast is superb. Craig with his piercing blue eyes is the foundation for the film. The guys from Knocked Up will be happy to know he again plays a Jew who kicks some ass. Much like Wolverine, Schreiber plays the more violent-minded brother who displays rare moments of sardonic wit. Their characters are painted as real people with flaws rather than superheroes. In one harrowing scene, Tuvia looks for revenge against the police chief who murdered his parents. He kills the man, but is also forced to kill his sons while the man’s wife watches and begs to be killed as well. It’s not at all the satisfactory sense of closure he had hoped for.

Where the film fails is through its by-the-numbers approach to storytelling. There are the usual Hollywood flourishes that have been added to make the story more cinematic. Zwick goes for the most melodramatic shots when possible as if he were fishing for Oscars. Daniel Craig gives the obligatory inspirational speech while astride a gleaming, white horse. The director even goes for a Godfather moment, intercutting between Asael’s wedding with Zus and the Russians attacking German troops. It makes Defiance a good movie, but not a great one.

Rating: ***