Love & Other Drugs

Maggie Murdock prizes her independence and avoids emotional attachment, while Jamie Randall is a smooth-talking pharmaceutical salesman whose charm works equally well on women and on doctors. Set in the 1990s, when Viagra was arriving on the market, the film follows the two as they meet and begin a relationship that was meant to stay casual. Both resist commitment, but their arrangement deepens into something neither expected. Maggie's reasons for keeping her distance are tied to a chronic illness, and that fact shapes how the pair confront what they have become to each other. The story draws on the experiences of a real Pfizer salesman and touches on the questionable practices of the pharmaceutical industry.

Edward Zwick directed and shares screenplay credit with Marshall Herskovitz and Charles Randolph, and also produced the film with Pieter Jan Brugge and Herskovitz. It stands ninth among the eleven features Zwick has directed, following Defiance and preceding Pawn Sacrifice. Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway lead the cast as Jamie and Maggie, with Oliver Platt, Hank Azaria, Josh Gad and Gabriel Macht in supporting roles, among 86 credited cast members.

Made for about 30 million dollars, the film took roughly 103 million worldwide, a clear commercial return on its budget. On IMDb it holds 6.7 out of 10 from around 249,000 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 7 out of 10 from a much smaller base of about 5,700. A critics' rating of 5.8 from 168 reviews places it below what general audiences gave it.