West Springfield High School Newspaper

The Oracle

West Springfield High School Newspaper

The Oracle

West Springfield High School Newspaper

The Oracle

Love and Predictable Endings

Warning: if you do not find Jake Gyllenhaal or Anne Hathaway attractive, you will not appreciate “Love and Other Drugs.”

The plot line follows the quintessential chick flick flow-chart that starts off with a suave, smooth-talking, attractive male lead (in this case, Jamie, played by Gyllenhaal) and an attractive yet somehow troubled female lead (Maggie, played by Hathaway) who both don’t believe in love and agree to have a casual, no-strings-attached physical relationship. Then an opposites-attract mentality kicks in and they find themselves deeper in a commitment than they had originally planned. Spoiler alert, though if you’ve ever seen a chick flick you know exactly what will happen, they each find themselves changed by the experience and fall in everlasting love by the time two hours is over.

The fact that it’s similar to every other girly movie ever made does not mean I didn’t enjoy it. There were a few twists on the usual plot line that made it worth $11 out of my pocket and two hours out of my life.

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Jamie is a genius who was never motivated to do anything with his life but work sales jobs and attract beautiful women. He is given the opportunity to become a medicine salesman and voilà, he is finally driven to accomplish something.

He comes in contact with Maggie during one of her doctor’s appointments, in which we find out that she is not our usual angsty, misunderstood artist but, in fact, has early onset Parkinson’s disease.

Jamie is immediately interested in Maggie, and so they eventually fall into a noncommittal groove of seeing each other and pretending that they don’t get more and more attached with every passing day.

The medicine salesman-patient aspect of their relationship is one of the most interesting contrasts the movie presents. He has faith in medicine, because after all, it’s making him rich, and tries to help Maggie find a doctor who can help her and possibly cure her.

She feels like she’s been cursed and believes that doctors are unreliable. She is also mistrusting of medicine salesmen in general because one, who is Jamie’s biggest medicine sales rival, broke her heart.

In a series of complications, we learn that both Maggie and Jamie are really just jaded, and they are perfect for each other.

This movie is not a family film, in any way. It is filled with nudity, profanity, and general vulgarity, but the Disney-esque message is still there: there is someone out there who is going to make you a better person and love you despite your flaws and your own self-doubt.

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