love & other drugs still

Love & Other Drugs hit theaters today, and the reviews are in. Cute couple Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway co-star once again and this time, things apparently get a lot steamier between the two than they ever did in Brokeback Mountain. Steamy as in naked. And much is being made of the fact that Hathaway exposes herself not only physically, but emotionally. Critics are giving her major kudos for her performance in this film.

Hathaway didn't do much for me in the Devil Wears Prada, but I thought she was great in Rachel Getting Married and in a strange little movie I watched on Netflix last week (Passengers), so it doesn't surprise me that everyone is saying she carries the film. The O-word is even being thrown around, but only time will tell if she'll be nominated for an Academy Award.

In the meantime, here's what the critics had to say about her performance in Love & Other Drugs:

Stephanie Zacharek, Movieline

[S]he is fearless about taking her clothes off, and that’s an increasing rarity among actresses today. ... But I think it’s harder for a serious actress -- or, to be more specific, one who wants to be taken seriously -- to do nude scenes than it is to peel back any number of emotional layers. Most actresses who want to be stars and/or serious actresses (for simplicity’s sake, let’s assume the two are the same) refuse to do nudity, even when not doing it might render a performance nonsensical ... What Hathaway does in Love and Other Drugs is an implicit strike against that view.


Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

Until now, Anne Hathaway has been a good actress, a smart actress, an actress with potential and an actress with a future. With Love and Other Drugs, her future begins.

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times
This is, however, Hathaway's movie. She delivers a performance easily as affecting as her emotionally bruised recovering addict in Jonathan Demme's fine Rachel Getting Married, which earned her an Oscar nomination in 2009. Maggie may do it for her again, with Hathaway exposing herself, both body and soul, as she lets us inside this lushly intelligent, painfully self-aware heartbreaker of a girl.

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
Hathaway saves as much of it as she can: She alone inhabits the credulity-stretching dual personalities of the picture with ease, often movingly.
Hathaway, in particular, is notable for her intimate, nuanced portrayal of a young woman coming to terms with the reality of a disease she will carry with her for the rest of her life.


Are you planning to see Love & Other Drugs?