Love and Other Drugs 2010

David Germain, Associated Press: Despite its dramatic pretenses and far racier sex scenes than the typical studio romance, the movie is as predictable and ultimately as sappy as any other run-of-the-mill Hollywood love story. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Jake Gyllenhaal is great in Love & Other Drugs. So is Anne Hathaway. Too bad the movie's a mess. Read more

James Rocchi, MSN Movies: The only thing to dislike about 'Love and Other Drugs' is how clearly, and desperately, it wants to be liked. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: Unfortunately the effects of the movie, therapeutic and intoxicating though they are, wear off before it is over. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: It's the sort of movie in which half the audience will be drying their eyes and the other half rolling them. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: "Love and Other Drugs" fits no convenient category, which I guess is a plus, but it leaves you not knowing what to think, so muddled is its mood. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: Love And Other Drugs gets wound up in a fascinating tangle of ill-advised romance and even more ill-advised pill-pushing gamesmanship. It's the untangling that's the problem. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: Gyllenhaal and Hathaway, who played a couple in "Brokeback Mountain," have a natural, likable chemistry. At least when it's allowed to shine. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: No genuine ideas were wasted in its making. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Eight months after health-care reform was signed into law, Universal Pictures courageously weighs in with a watered-down satire of the pharmaceutical industry. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: I wish director and co-writer Edward Zwick's film had the guts to treat Love & Other Drugs like a grown-up relationship story, rather than a relationship story periodically shoved aside by a lame and lamely raunchy romantic comedy for dummies. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: A slick weepie made by smart guys who want you to know they're better than the schlockmeisters. Read more

Christopher Kelly, Dallas Morning News: One or two provocative bits emerge from the incoherence. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: But in Love & Other Drugs, [Zwick] and Herskovitz find a groove that delivers wry writing and smart cultural observation. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: At just about the time Hathaway drops her garments, the movie begins to lose focus, unsure of what really matters to the filmmakers. Read more

Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter: In the end, this is a smart movie that could have been smarter. The script feels like it was a draft or so away from total clarity and focus. But the energy of the cast and a dive into an unfamiliar world make the movie rather addictive. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: Finally, after years of suffering through Hollywood's predictable pap, sentimental mush, boring bromances and mean girl cliches, comes a love story that is actually worth falling for... Read more

Karina Longworth, L.A. Weekly: An unfunny sex farce and a relationship study without a shred of genuine human behavior. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Love and Other Drugs doesn't quite avoid the pitfalls of its genre, but at least the movie has the decency to make you laugh on its way to a foregone conclusion. Also, did I mention the sex? Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: As many weak spots, but what it delivers at its core is as indelible as (and a lot more explicit than) the work of such legendary teams as Clark Gable and Joan Crawford, Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: What you're chiefly left with at the end -- despite two fine performances -- is a mild case of emotional whiplash no magic pill is going to cure. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: A polished romantic dramedy that won't change your life but might make you a little happier for a couple of hours. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: 100 minutes of bitterness and raunch followed by a few minutes of honeyed niceness is a formula for self-negation. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: There's no drug strong enough to get me through another movie like Love and Other Drugs. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Zwick and his cowriters (Marshall Herskovitz and Charles Randolph) are constantly letting Gyllenhaal and Hathaway down. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Love and Other Drugs may be the most honest romance to grace the screens during all of 2010. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The more weight the story of Maggie and Jamie takes on, the more distracting is the screenplay's need to intercut updates on the pharmaceutical wars. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: This movie is best treated like dim sum. Wait out the bad portions until a tastier dish is served. Let Hathaway be your guide. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: "Love and Other Drugs" is quite a mishmash of competing flavors. I mean that almost entirely in a good way. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Love becomes, for two people, the great challenge and the great educator, and at every step of this beautiful film, we believe it. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: Careening from bathos to bromance to naked sexytime, the movie is like a mashup of three or four different movies, at least two of them fairly unpleasant. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: "Love and Other Drugs" is a sprawling, ambitious romantic comedy drama for grown-ups. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Love and Other Drugs is successful in small doses, but the full regimen needed more testing. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: Altogether, not a bad trip. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: [Zwick] doesn't direct many rom-coms, and with Love & Other Drugs, you can see why. Read more

Mary F. Pols, TIME Magazine: While Hathaway and Gyllenhaal have good chemistry, and director Edward Zwick moves the narrative along nicely, the film is too self-satisfied to be genuinely touching. Read more

Anna Smith, Time Out: Ultimately, the unsettled tone undermines the romantic conclusion. Still, you've got to admire the ambition it shares with its cocky hero. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Zwick's Once and Again and thirtysomething portrayed emotion more honestly than many TV shows of their time. But in Love and Other Drugs, he unevenly weds the satirical and the sentimental. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: Snappy, saucy and, like any overzealous product-pusher, rather too eager to please. Read more

Eric Hynes, Village Voice: The most egregious four-quadrant pander-party of the year, Ed Zwick's latest middlebrow atrocity has been so carefully market-tested that it needn't even be seen, just administered directly into the bloody mainstream. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: Too often the moral of this story seems to be "Love means never having to say you." Read more