Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway
Plot: Jamie (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a smooth-talking womanising Viagra salesman (the two probably go hand in hand); Maggie (Anne Hathaway) a smart mouthed waitress with Parkinson’s Disease and the latest conquest in Jamie’s sights”¦but Maggie’s as uninterested by commitment as Jamie and that might just turn out to be a potent love drug.
TM Rating: It’s coming up to Valentine’s Day, so rom-coms are bound to be filling the multiplex screens, most of them as substantial as a bag of Maltesers and a lot less enjoyable. Love and Other Drugs thankfully is a cut above the usual fluff. Check out the casting of Gyllenhaal and Hathaway for a start ““ these are two solid actors so Mills & Boon with humour isn’t likely to be on the cards in this one. Neither is their romance all sweetness and red roses; Jamie’s a Viagra salesman so this is more romp-com than rom-com;these two have sex, quite a lot of sex.
This is a rom-com with a difference in that it focuses on the evolution of a relationship from sex first to love next to”¦well that would be telling. Gyllenhaal and Hathaway have a sparkling chemistry that helps make their relationship seem believable and the script is sharp and witty”¦for the first two thirds of the movie anyway. The last third is let down by a shift from being quite daring for a movie in this genre into standard rom-com territory, presumably to appease America audiences. Still it’s enjoyable stuff, but not as good as The Fighter which was the movie teasingly shown as being V.o.s on the Gran Sur ticket website.
7/10 ““ Love and Other Drugs is a rom-com with a bit of bump and grind”¦actually a lot of bump and grind. Most of the movie is above average for its type but it would have been better if the makers had”¦err been able to keep it up for the whole 112 minutes.
Screening Times: 15.30pm daily.
Tickets: €6.50 Buy YourTickets Here
