We know romantic comedy-dramas. Male and Female meet, date, there's some minor disagreement over some insignificant thing, and then they get back together. All the while, quirky-yet-personalityless best friends provide hackneyed attempts at laughs. Love and Other Drugs seems to be one of those movies...probably.
The trailer for Love and Other Drugs shows cad/pharmaceutical rep Jamie (Jake Gyllenhaal) reforming his ways after he meets Maggie (Anne Hathaway). I guess she's some sort of “free-spirit” in the not-particularly-interesting mold of Jennifer Aniston in Along Came Polly and Jenna Elfman in Dharma and Greg.
They fall for one another, Jamie becomes a sales rep for Viagra (whether this plot point is relevant or if there's a rationale behind making this a period piece, I don't know), and they're clearly going to have relationship problems. It's the formula for this type of movie and director Edward Zwick (The Last Samurai, Blood Diamond, Defiance) is not the type of filmmaker who strays too far from the formula.
The trailer clearly alludes to a problem between the two, but gives no insights into what it might be. Jamie seems too into Maggie to return to being a cad, and Maggie's one explanation for doubting the relationship (that she doesn't want to hold him back) is too vague to be the sole reason for their relationship woes; there has to be a more tangible reason. Put another way, one party feeling that they're holding the other party back is the effect. What is the cause?
** SPOILERS BELOW **
Supposedly, Maggie suffers from a terminal disease and that's what causes the rift. I actually do believe that there was a first trailer to Love and Other Drugs that made reference to this fact, but I haven't seen it and cannot find it. (Actually, I just couldn't listen to Jake Gyllenhaal's delivery of “Hey Lisa” anymore.)
In order to make the film seem lighthearted as opposed to depressing, the people who re-cut the trailer (the “second” trailer is the one constantly shown in theaters and from which the television ad campaign is based) eliminated any trace of this fact. It's understandable- a fun movie about two attractive people falling in love will probably reel in more people than a movie about mortality. Yet by excising this plot point in all the advertisements, Maggie instead comes across as completely fucking mental.
She's violent, then she's crying, she's highly sexed, then she's self-hating. Based on the ads alone, if I had to guess, I'd say that Maggie was bipolar. Severely bipolar.
This wouldn't be a bad thing, mind you. Gyllenhaal and Hathaway have proven themselves as perfectly suitable leads for a film about emotional instability and the self-destructiveness, obsessiveness, and addiction-like quality of love. Additionally, this take on the subject would actually fit the title of the film.
Unfortunately, this movie does not appear to be Days of Wine and Roses 2010. From the ads, it seems to follow the Generic Romantic Comedy-Drama Playbook mostly to a T. Yet the zaniness of Bored to Death's Oliver Platt and the other fat guy who had a guest appearance this season on Bored to Death contrasts with Maggie's breakdowns, further highlighting that there's a big piece of the puzzle missing in this tale of love.
There will always be an audience for a love-until-and-beyond-the-grave movie. From Terms of Endearment to The Notebook, this genre works. Imagining your loved one dying might not get people riled up for a big holiday weekend, but these films work and usually do decent business over time. Yet the attempt to redact this information ends up making the Love and Other Drugs come across as darker and without the heart-wrenching element that turns those other films into successes.
Love and Other Drugs opens November 24, and its the biggest Thanksgiving movie for a pretty important demo, further showing what a lame year 2010 has been for films. Also being released that weekend are: Disney's animatead Tangled, Dwayne Johnson's revenge flick Faster, and Christina Aguilera/Cher PG-13 musical Burlesque.
Of course, I might be entirely wrong. Love and Other Drugs could be a modern day Sid and Nancy. In which case, I'd see this one in theaters.
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