Love and Other Drugs is the story of a med school dropout (Gyllenhaal) who becomes a pharmaceutical salesman for Pfizer and is sent to sell in the mid-west.  It’s while trying to get the most popular doctor in town (Azaria) to prescribe their products that he meets a patient who’s there about her early onset Parkinson’s (Hathaway).  The two form a sexual relationship but when Gyllenhaal’s character starts feeling more than lust Hathaway is quick to back away.  In the midst of their romance Pfizer introduces Viagra and Gyllenhaal’s career skyrockets.

I think they were trying to make this a romantic comedy that headed into deeper waters with the introduction of a debilitating disease.  But it just makes the movie more of a drama and not all that funny.  In fact the comedic moments feel really out of place and tend to derail the plot and the drama and just destroy the tone of the film, which shifts all the time.  Basically the movie just doesn’t work.

To add to that you have Gyllenhaal’s character who is almost completely unlikeable.  In order for you to hope he gets the girl you should like him.  Instead I felt more like the girl deserved way better.  Except that she’s kinda a jerk for large pieces of the movie as well, often without any motivation.  The movie relies on Parkinson’s as a kind of catch-all excuse for every one of her emotions and that just doesn’t fly.

Speaking of Hathaway, she does spend the entire first half of the movie either naked or almost naked.  Her character in that half is pretty much nothing more than just a sex crazed girl who constantly has no shirt on.  After that she just becomes a caricature of a sick girl.  You can tell she’s trying to do the best with what she’s given and she is convincing, but the material isn’t up to the actress.

Overall I don’t recommend this unless you wanna see a whole lot of naked Anne Hathaway (and let’s be honest, who doesn’t?).