For this week's Dangerously Unqualified Script Doctor, we face our most challenging operation yet: separating the set of Siamese twins that is Edward Zwick's decidedly okay Love and Other Drugs.
The film follows the budding relationship between slick Lothario Jamie (Jake Gyllenhaal), who tries his hand as pharmaceutical rep, and artist Maggie (Anne Hathaway) who's suffering from early onset Parkinson's.
Our patient, you see, is in actuality two completely separate films, and their fleshy connectivity is encumbering both of our patient's lives.
On one hand, we have Jamie, a young Lothario/ rising star on the pharmaceutical rep ladder. For Jamie, what should be a rise-and-fall piece about a go getter's journey through a morally questionable industry, a kind of Wall Street for the Viagra age, deviates the instance he meets Hathaway, and her cumbersome medical burden. Think of the possibilities for our patient: early struggles, success, a questionable mentor, some serious, life-altering decisions, and watching it all come crashing down.
And the same can be said for Hathaway's Maggie, who really needs her own film to fully explore the emotional highs and lows of such a devastating condition. Hathaway is more than capable of handling these roles solo, and sharing a movie with Jamie only diminishes her journey. However, a love interest can still be the catalyst for Maggie's movie, we just need to stay focused on her story.
Will our patients be able to survive apart? The dangerously unqualified script doctor says... yes.
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