Love and Other Drugs (2010)

I have been a fan of Edward Zwick ever since his early days when he directed "Glory" (1989) and "Legends of the Fall" (1994). But for the man who in the last 10 years directed "The Last Samurai" (2003), "Blood Diamond" (2006) and "Defiance" (2008), a romantic-sort-of-comedy, a movie about relationships, seems a little bit out of tune. But in the previous examples, despite the epic scope, Zwick could always get at the human, the individual, and work the story from there and not the other way around. Here there is no epic scope, and even the back story is almost just an excuse. This is a movie about 2 persons, 2 individuals, and their love. It may not be the most interesting of such movies (you enjoy it while you see it, almost forget it when you leave, there are not very distinguishable features), but it's solid enough, with good performances (especially by Anne Hathaway and Oliver Platt), with a few comic momments, that fails for being victim of a few "rules" of the romantic-comic genre, but nails it when describing the pangs and wants of love. Jake Gyllenhaal is very well cast as a young man very skillful in sales and very skillful with woman, who becomes a pharmaceutical sales rep for a big company, and gets sent to a new town. There he works his skills in trying to convince doctors (through the courting of nurses and secretaries, etc, etc) to prescribe the medicines of his company in favor of others. A lot goes on with Gyllenhaal's wash out brother (the comic relief), Oliver Platt (the mentor), Hank Azaria (the main doctor he needs to "grab") and Gabriel Macht (the competition) until he finally meets Hathaway, a girl who suffers from Parkinson and receives her treatment in the same hospital. She is as free spirited as he is, and what starts as casual sex ends in a relationship and eventually love. In between her illness is a problem, she shuts the outside world from it, and pushes him back because she is afraid to show weakness and commit. His independence and want for money and promotion is also a problem, a person who never needed anyone but sees himself get more and more drawn into this affair. Eventually they will have a fall out (because all romantic comedies have a fall out), and eventually they will get back together in a major romantic scene (this is the one I think doesn't fit, it's too Hollywwod in an otherwise very real and down-to-earth-film). In the middle, Viagra gets invented by the Farmaceutical and Gyllenhaal becomes it's main seller. More than just another story point, it servs as a cathalist for Gyllenhaal's personality to come forward, and also to give some humorous (albeit forced) moments. In the end, this movies is about two people, one hot-shot and another with a major illness, who learn to live with each other despite all odds. Zwick's camera is delicate, Hathaway's performance breathtaking, and her beauty astonishing. I just didn't understand, yet again, why she had to show her breasts so often. Some shots where just plain show off. All in all, this is a film about love that seldom leaves it's established rythm, but that conveys, yet in simple terms, what it really is all about, something that those Valentine's day movies never really understood, despite the supposed "romantic" moments and "romantic" lines. True love is not about these. True love is about life, and "Love and Other Drugs" hits, if not the mark, at least darn close.