Love and Other Drugs

It's been awhile since I have seen a movie that really touched me. The kind of film which gives you goosebumps and takes you on one of those crazy emotional I-love-you-I-hate-you rides.

This movie is Love and Other Drugs.

It had me in fits of embarrassing cinema laughter and then the next thing I knew tears were streaming down my face. It included the drama you could only wish to have in your life and the love that one hopes to experience just once in a lifetime.

It was gushy and sad and everything a chick flick should be. But it was more than a chick flick and less than a guy's movie. It had sex and a lot of sex. And it had jokes and jerks and fight scenes.

And the soundtrack. Sometimes this is what can make a movie. That is not the story in this case, but the tunes were perfect for every scene. Like Muse matched the baseball scene in Twilight, the music in this one was like two peas in a pod. I couldn't decide if the scene matched the song or if the song matched the scene. They seemed synonymous. I have been singing The Kink's Well Respected Man all night.

And then the giggles. When Jamie is on the phone to Maggie and uses the ultimate line that all guys think works and all girls pretend to hate, I melt. "I like the sound of your voice," he whispers to her. And his brother who overhears, takes the big LOL award with his response to degrade him; "Were you molested by a Care Bear?"

When Jamie confesses his love for Maggie you can't help but swoon. I swear I heard male voices around the cinema crooning at this one.

"I love you," he says.
"Now you're even more fucked up than I am," she replies, "but I once said that to a cat!"
"Okay, you can hold me now."

I have not loved a rollercoaster movie like this since Candy. I love a movie that is not just about love, it's about the obstacles and the dire situations and overcoming all these little hurdles. And in the end, the love lasts and it's beautiful and scarier and harder to imagine happening to you.

And that's when it's meant to teach you this amazing lesson that life is great and perhaps our love and lives can be influenced by things like literature and film and music. And just perhaps they make us stronger, and wiser and better equipped to deal with that tough little reality that we call life.