Love and Other Drugs (2010, U.S.)

I was really surprised by how much I liked this movie. Of course I was excited to see it because I love Jake Gyllenhaal, though I've never been especially fond of Anne Hathaway. (What made me decide I didn't like her? It seems like everything I've ever seen her in, I've been impressed. Maybe her voice bothers me? I can't figure it out! I guess from now on, I'll say I like her a lot.) Anyway, this movie was great. A lot of movies from the 1990s feel very dated, but this movie made last year about the 1990s felt not quite nostalgic, not quite historical, but something like that. Instead of feeling "so 1990s," it felt like it was recreating a sort of idealized '90s. It's hard to explain, but in any case, it worked well.

The setup was also very effective. It opens showing Jamie (Jake Gyllenhaal) selling electronics (very '90s electronics!) to men, women, old ladies with equal success. The brief scene really defines Jamie as a born salesman and charmer. And the ensuing tryst with the manager's girlfriend in the storeroom defines him as a born womanizer... and charmer. It's quite a surprise when we next find him at his wealthy parents home, with a father and sister who are doctors and a brother who is a software millionaire. His background seems so unlikely with his current life.

Anyway, he eventually gets into selling pharmaceuticals for Pfizer, mainly trying to get doctors to prescribe Zoloft instead of Prozac. The insight into the drug industry is absolutely fascinating. I don't really know that much about it, but it felt realistic to me, at least. And there is a lot of industry humor thrown in that was truly amusing, and once he starts selling Viagra, it only gets better. Normally I'm not into crude humor, and one would think that selling a sex drug and jokes about its use and situational comedy (think long-lasting erections) would not amuse me at all, but it was actually done fairly tastefully and made me laugh out loud. Surprising.

In the middle of all this drug-selling, Jamie meets Maggie, a woman of 26 with early-onset Parkinson's Disease. Her character was so complex it was nearly staggering. There's her disease and her worries about it and her refusal to be defined by it. There's her art. There's her undefined job, which involves taking senior citizens to Canada where they can afford their prescriptions. (Yet more commentary on the drug industry.) There's her desire for frequent no-strings sex and refusal to be in a relationship, even when it's obvious to the viewer that she's falling in love. Anne Hathaway was absolutely stellar in her performance, down to her shaking hands and lethargy (caused by her illness) and up to her flawlessly-performed emotional breakdowns. Paired with Jake Gyllenhaal's charming, selling, womanizing Jamie, it just really worked. Great stuff. (I also have to insert a side note on a subject I don't usually take the time to comment on: sex scenes. Some were strangely detached feeling, which I suppose is good since it was a no-strings relationship in the beginning. But one was especially beautiful once they were more together... It's raining outside and it's shot through the window, so all the viewer sees is the watery, unfocused forms of very gentle lovers on a lovely deep red bedspread. It was quite beautiful.)

Basically, it had all the hallmarks of the best of the best romantic comedies, but I almost don't want to call it that. Mostly the comedy came from his job and the romance was much more dramatic (and far from funny), and these two elements were combined flawlessly. Added to the very unique characters and plot, the quasi-nostalgic (or whatever you want to call it) feel, the interesting details of the pharmaceutical industry and Parkinson's disease, and some wonderful performances, this was one of the best "romantic comedies" I've ever seen.

Rating: 4.0

The Runaways (2010, U.S.)

Color me surprised. I didn't know anything about The Runaways and I've never really liked late '70s/'80s music, but I was curious to see Kristen Stewart in this one. I already thought she was an underrated and quite brilliant actress, but this one really convinced me. I love how she is so unafraid to look ridiculous, wearing silly clothes, rocking the ugliest hairdo, and singing like a fool. And wow, she was Joan Jett. The even bigger surprise was that Dakota Fanning, who I've absolutely loathed in the past, was almost as good as Cherie Currie. Between the two of them and the rest of the cast, there was a great dynamic that lent an excellent sense of realism to the film.

Costumes and makeup were stellar. I was investigating The Runaways' website and some of the costumes matched their tour pictures to a tee. Sets, script, everything made the period come alive.

This was a fascinating biopic that made me enjoy music that I'd never liked and taught me something that I never knew and entertained me all at once. That is a successful film if I ever heard of one. I'd love to see it again. A real cherry bomb!

Rating: 4.0

Gia (1998, U.S.)

If I've said it once, I've said it a million times. Angelina Jolie is brilliant. Here she played Gia Marie Carangi, a top fashion model from the late 1970s and early 1980s. I am not the kind of person who cares at all about fashion; I'm not the kind of person who condones drug use, wild behavior, or promiscuity; but I found myself really caring about Gia, her life, and her career. I don't know if it was Jolie or Gia or what, but her personality was larger than life. She didn't just come off the screen, she exploded off the screen.

The writing must have been very strong, because the pacing was very good for a biographical film. Gia wanted to live life to the fullest, but she didn't really get the love and support she needed, and she turned to drugs instead. The most powerful part of this film was the ending, when Carangi was in the hospital dying. (She died in 1986 at 26 of AIDS.) It was so vivid and heartbreaking, seeing this great celebrity languishing all alone.

This was an incredible film. The tone was dark. It had a gritty, realistic feel. And a 23-year-old Angelina Jolie was already in control of her incredible acting talent and absolutely breathtaking. Costumes were perfect. And from what I've read, it was pretty historically accurate too. All in all, a winner.

Rating: 4.0

London (2005, U.S.)

This film had a good concept. A guy and girl with an on-again/off-again dysfunctional relationship are very off-again, but they show up at the same party. Through flashbacks and dialogue, the viewer learns of their past together.

Here's the thing. The execution was terrible. The acting was horrible. The characters were self-interested, shallow wastes of space. The flashbacks were good in theory, but too disjointed in practice. (Of course, that could have been the bad acting.)

That's all I've got. It was just kind of stupid.

Rating: 2.0

The United States of Leland (2003, U.S.)

Last night I put Season 6 of McLeod's Daughters on hold to watch The United States of Leland. It was intense, to say the least. The cast of this film was incredible. Don Cheadle, Kevin Spacey, Lena Olin... great actors. I liked that they all took relatively minor roles in this film and played them well. As great as all of these actors are, they couldn't overshadow one of the greatest actors of what I will call "my" generation -- Ryan Gosling. Gosling has done so few big movie roles, and yet every one of them is powerful and memorable. You can try denying that he is a great actor, but I'm not buying it. This film is a particularly good example.

Gosling plays a very strange, withdrawn teenager named Leland P. Fitzgerald who murders his ex-girlfriend's retarded younger brother. However, the focus of the film isn't about the actual murder (we never see the event) or about solving a crime (he admits his guilt from the beginning). Instead, it is about discovering his character and why he committed the murder. Leland says he doesn't know why he did it, but he begins keeping a journal in prison to organize his thoughts. The "United States of Leland" is what he names his journal. He says it doesn't mean he's the president; it just means it's his way of seeing the world. While he never answers the "Why?" regarding the murder, the observant viewer can figure it out. And the reason is sad, and almost beautiful -- for lack of a better word.

Aside from the casting and acting, I also enjoyed Leland's narration, the repetition of a key image at the beginning and end of the film, and the shaken temporal structure that gave the feeling of a puzzle. The viewer therefore has to piece together Leland's confused thoughts as well as the chronology -- not to mention the relationships of all the characters. Leland's confused, the victim's family is confused, the prison teacher is confused, the viewer is confused. Relationships don't make sense, murder doesn't make sense, pain doesn't make sense, love doesn't make sense, life doesn't make sense. And that's sort of the feeling you get from this movie about a lost, lonely, detached teenager who takes his melancholy to an extreme. Fascinating.

Rating: 4.0