Review of Love & Other Drugs (2010) by Brandon M — 08 Aug 2011

"I'm going to need you more than you need me.".

Love and Other Drugs is bi-polar. It gradually transitions from fun and light to melodramatic and deathly serious, and I can't say that it manages that switch completely successfully. Some people will prefer the sexy fun of the first half (like me), and others will find the more emotional latter half to be more involving (not like me), but I doubt most will equally enjoy both parts (I didn't). And one of the main characters is probably one of the most annoying ever written, and the movie would have automatically been about 10% better without him in it (has Josh Gad ever been even slightly funny in anything?).

Other than that stuff, Love and Other Drugs is pretty decent. The characters are interesting and semi-realistic, it avoids being excessively sappy or predictable (at least, until the end), and Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway have chemistry coming out the wazoo.

Love and Other Drugs could have been something awesome, but it fails to live up to its full potential by eventually giving in to the same worn tropes that 75% of the movies in this genre slavishly adhere to. It's still worth checking out if you're curious, though.