Love and Other Drugs
starring Anne Hathaway’s boobs and Jake Gyllenhaal
directed by Edward Zwick
I’m pretty sure this movie was about a really hot but emotionally distant pair of tits that is afraid to commit because of their fear that no one will love them because of their terminal penchant for displaying themselves. Anne Hathaway’s mouth makes a cameo as the thing that screams “WHYYYYYYYYYYY” suddenly and overdramatically when she drunkedly drops a bottle of vodka. It’s supposed to be a moment that shows that the character the boobs are attached to is facing a terrifying loss of neurological control in her battle with early onset Parkinson’s, but people drinking almost an entire bottle of vodka are pretty likely to accidentally drop the bottle anyway, with or without Parkinson’s.
Jake Gyllenhaal is Jamie Randall, a happy-go-lucky playboy who loses his job selling high-tech stereo equipment and becomes a pharmaceutical rep. He is the black sheep of his family, even though his little brother happens to be a terrifying science experiment, the result of a DNA melding of Jonah Hill and Jack Black. He has a smart, uptight sister that he argues with at the dinner table and who is never seen again as she is just there to show the viewing audience that Jamie is so much different from everyone and lacks a moral compass, because only uptight bitches have those.
While Jamie desperately tries to shelf his samples in the office of an influential doctor, Hank Azaria as Dr. Why-the-Fuck-Are-You-In-This-I-Expected-Better-From-You,-Hank-Azaria, he ends up throwing out (why?) the samples in a dumpster every day, and as he does this we see a homeless man stealing them and becoming cleaner and eventually telling Jamie Randall that he has a job interview. We never see the homeless guy again, probably because Zoloft has made him into a human being. So thanks for throwing away the one potentially interesting (though immediately predictable) plot point this movie could have had, this movie.
Then Jamie meets Maggie Murdoch, the pair of boobs that are Anne Hathaway’s. She gets mad that he sees her boobs and she is frustrated and so world-weary because she has Parkinson’s and no one can help her and even though she somehow manages to pay for a loft in Chicago on the wages of a waitress working approximately one day a week, she is utterly cynical and unhappy. Also why the fuck would you be a waitress or barista if your hands were shaking all the time? Either way, her boss (one of two people of color in the film, neither of whom have any dialogue) is very forgiving because he lets her wallow at home for days on end, or make surprise trips to Canada, or bang Jamie Randall in a bathroom.
I shouldn’t explain how Maggie Murdoch and Jamie Randall got together because you already know, in your heart: she is mad that he did a thing, he wants to see the boobs more and is intrigued at her unavailability, she screams at him, he asks her out for coffee, banging ensues. And then they fall in love because they eat organic cereal together and the sex is no longer feral, because people in love only ~make love~. Then there are about a dozen montages of them playing in leaves or something. Then a conflict occurs, which is that Maggie doesn’t want to be Jamie’s girlfriend because then she’d lose the one facet of personality the movie attributes to her: her lack of availability. Then they break up and get back together.
The movie takes place in the 90s, to showcase the pharmaceutical boom that happened as a result of increased use of anti-depressants and the introduction of Viagra. The only way that you know it’s the 90s is that women are wearing florals and denim vests and people do the Macarena. I guess that’s the only way the 90s were different, though. It wasn’t a completely different time period in terms of the economy or the political climate or anything like that. NOPE NOT AT ALL.
Rating: 1 out of 6 burgers, for WHYYYYYYYYYYY, and for every time I was accurately able to predict a plot point before it happened
Because I was doing that. Out loud. Which leads me to my next review.
Myself as an Audience Member
starring me
I talked the whole time. The entire time. My friend and I went to the 10:15 PM showing on a Wednesday night. We sat in the front and the only other people there were sitting in the very back. And from the very first moment we did not shut our mouths.
Most of it was accurate predictions:
“SHE IS GONNA REBUFF HIM”
“SHE IS GONNA TAKE ISSUE WITH THE WORD GIRLFRIEND”
“THAT ASSHOLE IS GONNA BE HER EX-BOYFRIEND”
“HE WILL CHANGE HER WITH HIS ~LOVE~”
“THE HOMELESS GUY IS GONNA GET ALL CLEANED UP BECAUSE OF ANTI-DEPRESSANTS”
Some of them were not-so-accurate predictions:
“SHE IS GONNA DIE”
“SHE IS GONNA DIE IN THE STORE”
“SHE IS GONNA DIE ON THE BUS”
“HE IS GONNA GET A CALL AFTER HE BANGS THOSE GIRLS Â AND FIND OUT SHE DIED”
“THE HOMELESS GUY IS REALLY A PRIEST AND WILL MARRY THEM AT THE END”
I was also leaning over and making cynical comments at the same time that Maggie Murdoch, in the film, was leaning over to Jamie Randall and making cynical comments. And I made fun of her for it. I also made fun of her vintage robe while wearing a vintage sweater and vintage boots. I rolled my eyes at her eye-rolling.
“Newsflash: no one says newsflash”, I newsflashed at her newsflashing.
About ten minutes before the movie ended, the group of kids in the back got up to leave, and each in turn gave me a death glare, ostensibly because I ruined the movie for them. I was able to ruin a movie that already had a cut&paste script from every other romantic comedy and in which NOTHING HAPPENS.
So for that I suppose as an audience member, I deserve 0Â out of 6 burgers.