Love not Drug

文/姝然

An artist and part-time waitress, she's suffering from early-onset Parkinson's disease, and they embark on a no-strings-attached affair of mutually satisfying carnality. She doesn't want a serious liaison with someone who might either leave her or be stuck with her as a hopeless dependent, and he doesn't want to make a commitment that will limit his freewheeling lifestyle. The relationship is handled with a refreshing frankness, candour and humour. There's nothing in Love & Other Drugs quite as funny or as sharp as a cartoon in the current New Yorker. A pair of Godzilla-like monsters are stalking the streets of midtown Manhattan, each grinning and clutching two fistfuls of citizens from which they're taking generous bites. One says to the other: "Of course you're cheerful. These things are loaded with anti-depressants."

It was said of the zoologist and public intellectual Lord (Solly) Zuckerman that the spur to his considerable ambition came from his name always being at the bottom of alphabetical lists in his youth.Love and Other Drugs presents an honest, sometimes brutal chronicle of a complicated relationship. There are no "meet cutes" or romantic complications. The issues encountered by Jamie and Maggie are those faced by many couples where emotional openness is a barrier and where the sickness of one partner creates a commitment imbalance. And, although Maggie's Parkinson's is a factor, this is by no means a "disease of the week" motion picture.

Love and Other Drugs has an unfettered view of sexuality. It's part of the human experience and is treated as such, especially since it's the initial strand that binds Jamie and Maggie. Zwick has a specific approach to the characters' nudity, and it's not based (exclusively) on titillation. There's a lot of flesh early in their interaction, during the "Honeymoon phase." Later, as the characters' focus shifts from physical to emotional, instances of nudity becomes uncommon. There is an inverse relationship between physical nakedness and emotional nakedness.

Regardless of whether or not this becomes a player in the Oscar game, the movie is worth seeing for anyone who cares about a love story that isn't geared for those who are still struggling with the immediate aftereffects of puberty.