Love and Other Drugs

When the cat's away, the mouse will play.  And so it came to be that I found myself watching Love and Other Drugs, while my husband, the lover of arthouse, foreign, and independent cinema, was away for work.

And you know what?  It wasn't that bad.  Love and Other Drugs stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Jamie, a drug rep for Pfizer in the mid-90's, hawking his wares of Prozac and Zoloft across the Midwest, in the hope of making it to the big city: Chicago.  In the course of his sales, he meets Maggie (Anne Hathaway), a 26-year old photographer and Parkinson's patient.  Jamie and Maggie both have a strong initial attraction and they embark on a mostly sexual relationship.  Their sexual relationship inevitably takes a turn for the more serious.

At a meeting for Parkinson's patients, Jamie meets an older husband of a wife with Stage 4 Parkinson's, who pulls no punches when describing what the future of caring for someone with Parkinson's may look like.  Following their discussion, Jamie makes it his personal mission to find a cure for Maggie, dragging her across the county for one experimental treatment after the next.  Maggie realizes that Jamie may not be equipped to handle the reality of being in love with a sick person.  The two sadly part ways.  But not to worry, there is a happy ending. 

Gyllenhaal and Hathaway play their parts well and have a pretty good on-screen chemistry.  Parts of the story felt forced, and a few parts seemed somewhat extraneous, but for the most part the script and story flowed well.  I'm going with a 6 out of 10.