Love and Other Drugs

Love Is All You Need
Love and Other Drugs, R, ***, Jake Gylienhaal, Anne Hathaway, Oliver Platt, Hank Azaria, Josh Gad Gabriel Macht. 20th Century Fox film. Director Edward Zwick. Length 112 minutes.

Jamie Randall (Jake Gyllenhaal) is an excellent salesman, and ladies man with a gift for gab. We first meet Jamie in an electronic store where he is on top of his game in all of the above mentioned activities.
Unfortunately, he joins the large group of unemployed. Fortunately, he has a family with wealth. His brother Josh (Josh Gad) has just made a fortune in the world of finance. A few years ago Jamie dropped out of med school, because of some issues with his family.
After losing his sales position at the electronic store, he is looking for another job. Soon he finds it. He takes a sales job with the pharmaceutical industry. Things do not seem to be going well with him. He accepts a job with Pfizer selling Zoloft. Zoloft is an antidepressant drug that helps individuals return to normal and sometimes above normal.
However, the big break comes when Viagra hits the market. This magic pill begins to bombard the drug market, and Jamie uses his skills to help make his company happy while he pleases his customers with overwhelming sales abilities.
He accidentally meets Maggie Murdock (Anne Hathaway) who is an artist and free spirit. She lives in a loft, and she helps individuals who cannot afford the high price for their drugs to travel across the border to Canada. There the drugs are less expensive.
The movie does not overwhelm the audience with a debate about Health Care. It does show the problems and how some people are becoming rich as a result of the drug industry.
This romantic comedy is above average. It has a very heart warming story behind all of the hype in the world today. Maggie has a problem. I will not mention the issue, because as the story progresses, it becomes the center of the whole movie.
After viewing the movie, I was reading the book Project Cyclops by Thomas Hoover. A passage reminded me of the movie I had just viewed. Here is the quote: “Needing somebody is the richest experience of life.” Maybe The Beatles had it right in their song, All You Need is Love.
The movie has a deep message and relevant story. Relevancy and plot merge to bring a gratifying story to the audience. “Love and Other Drugs” has a lot of humor, bad language, sexual content, drug use, and mature themes. However, it does deliver a strong message.
I recommend the movie. Just be prepared for the R rated content. The audience will leave the theater knowing they have viewed something above the ordinary romantic comedy so prevalent in the theaters lately.