Tag Archives: Love And Other Drugs

Source Code – Movie Review

U.S. Army captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) wakes up on a train. He doesn’t know how he got there. He doesn’t know who the girl in front of him is and why she’s calling him Sean. He’s disorienteted. He says he’s not Sean. He’s a U.S. Army captain whose last mission was in Afghanistan… and soon enough, the train blows up and Colter Stevens wakes up in what looks like a capsule, being talked to by a woman named Goodwin (Vera Farmiga).

Colter Stevens is told he’s inside the “Source Code”, a program that takes him back to Sean Fentress’ last eight minutes of life, before he died on the train heading to Chicago that morning. He’s supposed to find the bomber because a second attack is planned, one that would take the lives of millions of people. And so Stevens is taken back to the train many times, each time discovering that the sequence of events isn’t necessarily the same as before and thinking that maybe he could change the events altogether.

 

The intricacies of “Source Code” are not the main mystery about this movie, nor is the bomber. It’s Colter Stevens himself and having figured it out way early in the movie did not forbid me from thoroughly enjoying this.

Jake Gyllenhaal is the movie’s greatest asset. He fuses together the movie’s action side with a sensible side that is, with most action movies, hard to come by. I’ve been very impressed lately with many of his movies, notably Love and Other Drugs, and I thought he doesn’t let down here.

Vera Farmiga is great as usual also, even though her role is sort of limited as the behind-the-screen Goodwin who starts to communicate with Colter Stevens on a deeper level than just a military personnel directing a mission. Her role in this is more toned down than Up In The Air but it’s still great.

And Michelle Monaghan, in portraying Christina, the girl on the train, and despite the limited number of lines she was given (I mean, she does repeat the same sentence over and over again), I thought she was great as well, making you believe that Stevens could actually fall in love with her in the eight minutes they have together.

“Source Code” is not your regular sci-fi action movie. I would categorize it more as a thriller because it’s deeply more engaging than any other action movie I have watched lately. Not only do you get to connect with the characters but you really hope that, somehow, they get to be saved.

Moreover, Source Code is not void of emotions. While most of these emotions are tucked away in the end, you can’t help but be hit with them when they appear on screen. I will not spoil the center theme upon which they revolve but you will definitely feel them when you watch this.

Overall, Source Code is a thought provoking and engaging thriller. Directing in it is great as well by newcomer Duncan Jones, who doesn’t seem affected by the much dreaded sophomore slump. Are the memories that are being relived read-only data or can they be altered? Some people will not appreciate the confusion that this movie poses at certain times, especially since continuity is an issue that is very difficult to follow in movies like this (a la Inception), but overall, while watching it, Source Code will make you submerge in it. After you get out, however, and start thinking about the movie, you realize there are some plot-holes they left unanswered. Was it intentional? Perhaps so. But this is definitely one of the better movies of 2011 so far, one that I think every movie enthusiast should consider watching.

Love And Other Drugs – Review

Love And Other Drugs, aka one of the most hated movies of the year. But unlike the overall opinion regarding this movie, I actually loved it!

Love And Other Drugs stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Jamie, an ADD son of a doctor, who doesn’t want to follow in his dad’s footsteps, so he gets a job as a pharmaceutical sales rep for Pfizer, the company that later on brought the world Viagra. While trying to sell his company’s drug, he meets Maggie, the character portrayed by Anne Hathaway. Maggie has an early onset of Parkinson’s and this where the story starts.

The movie is very life-like. It’s about commerce (trying to sell drug to doctors who can be bought by gifts and schmoozing), ambition and ultimately love. Aren’t those things what life is all about? You have ambition to basically set a name for yourself. This ambition will lead you to make good money, fall in love and raise a family. This is where the life-like approach comes from.

Each one of the main characters of this movie has their own journey. Jamie’s path is to grow out of the careless womanizer that he is into a man. And Maggie’s growth revolves around trust in people, to let go of her own secure but fragile little world and let go.  Jake Gyllenhaal is heartfelt, engaging in his portrayal of Jamie. He draws you in and makes the character very likable. But the true star here is Anne Hathaway.

Anne Hathaway has very much grown since her The Princess Diaries days. And if the first hour of movie, which is basically sex, is not convincing enough, she blows you away (no pun intended) with the emotions she gets across in the second half. It’s not hard (again no pun intended) to like her in any movie that she does, be it the drug addict in Rachel Getting Married or as the sick woman in this one. Her embodiment of a Parkinson’s patient is very good. The tremors she makes, the way she lives the disease… it is all done with the right touch of credibility. And this is coming from a person who has lived firsthand with someone with Parkinson’s. The struggle to get the drugs, the disappointment when she discovers she forgot to refill her prescription… you live the movie and the character through Maggie’s eyes, predicting what she’ll do next: will she open up to Jamie or will she remain secluded? Will she let herself truly live or will she just keep in going by? It’s a multi-layered character, delivered brilliantly. And I’m not ashamed to say I prefer this performance over Annette Bening’s performance in The Kids Are All Right.

There’s one particular scene involving a vodka bottle that is very haunting. You can’t but feel sorry for her character at that point.

Some say that the nudity is unnecessary, especially with the amount it is in this movie. I disagree. The sex scenes in this movie are the vehicle by which these two characters communicate and get to know each other. Relationships usually start the other way around. This is not the case here. Instead of having their minds do the talking, their bodies do.

Moreover, you feel at times that the plot can be taken to an extra level. Sometimes, it feels as if the script could have used an extra draft to make this movie into one that could have actually been a very strong contender at this year’s award season. Some scenes are dispensable and very Hollywood-like cliche, in a movie that is not very cliche. An extra revision would have probably tied those scenes up and delivered a truly great movie.

To finish this up, I prefer Love And Other Drugs over all the other  movies in the Motion Picture – Comedy nomination at the Golden Globes. It’s not for all tastes. But I loved it.