Love and Other Drugs
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation | Release Date: November 24, 2010 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
55
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 38 Critic Reviews
Positive:
19
Mixed:
15
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
88
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliDec 13, 2010
The result, bolstered by strong acting and an intriguing back story, is an unqualified success. Love and Other Drugs may be the most honest romance to grace the screens during all of 2010. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyDec 13, 2010
A love story that is actually worth falling for, with Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal excellent at steaming up the screen in Love & Other Drugs. Read full review
75
Orlando SentinelRoger MooreDec 13, 2010
Two very good looking people play two offbeat and abrasively charming lovers in Love & Other Drugs. And when your screen romance is as sexual as this one, it helps if your stars are about as good looking with their clothes off as human beings get. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleDec 13, 2010
As is appropriate in a well-crafted and meticulous movie, the acting is strong down the line. Read full review
70
SalonAndrew O'HehirDec 13, 2010
It honestly shouldn't work at all, yet somehow on the strength of good humor and sex appeal ends up being one of the most enjoyable mainstream films of the season. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterKirk HoneycuttDec 13, 2010
In the end, this is a smart movie that could have been smarter. The script feels like it was a draft or so away from total clarity and focus. But the energy of the cast and a dive into an unfamiliar world make the movie rather addictive. Read full review
70
The New York TimesA.O. ScottDec 13, 2010
A sometimes intoxicating, sometimes headache-inducing cocktail: a sweet, libidinous love story; a candid comedy of bedroom and workplace manners; and, most bravely, if also most jarringly, a medical melodrama involving a chronic and very serious disease. Read full review
70
The New YorkerDavid DenbyDec 13, 2010
Love and Other Drugs has many weak spots, but what it delivers at its core is as indelible as (and a lot more explicit than) the work of such legendary teams as Clark Gable and Joan Crawford, Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianMarc MohanDec 13, 2010
They could have made a harder-hitting, more realistic film, but then no one would have gone to see it. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubScott TobiasDec 13, 2010
When Gyllenhaal stops selling out, the movie starts. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerDec 13, 2010
Love & Other Drugs is a slick weepie made by smart guys who want you to know they're better than the schlockmeisters. They've outsmarted themselves. Read full review
65
MovielineStephanie ZacharekDec 13, 2010
As potentially appealing as these two actors might be, there's just nowhere for this story to go. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia PuigDec 13, 2010
Zwick's "Once and Again" and "Thirtysomething" portrayed emotion more honestly than many TV shows of their time. But in Love and Other Drugs, he unevenly weds the satirical and the sentimental. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaDec 13, 2010
There's no adroitness, no grace in the handling of the pitching emotions - funny, sad, icky - that such a story presents. Read full review
63
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsDec 13, 2010
Successful in small doses, but the full regimen needed more testing. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick GroenDec 13, 2010
Love & Other Drugs is quite the little cocktail of mood-brighteners, a movie narcotic easy to take and, since the effects wear off quickly, even easier to forget. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrDec 13, 2010
If product proves especially difficult to swallow, take with a grain of salt and three or more alcoholic drinks, or wait until such time as active ingredients Hathaway and Gyllenhaal have been more effectively utilized elsewhere. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertDec 13, 2010
The director is Edward Zwick, a considerable filmmaker. He obtains a warm, lovable performance from Anne Hathaway and dimensions from Gyllenhaal that grow from comedy to the serious. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezDec 13, 2010
Doesn't quite avoid the pitfalls of its genre, but at least the movie has the decency to make you laugh on its way to a foregone conclusion. Also, did I mention the sex? Read full review
60
Time OutJoshua RothkopfDec 13, 2010
The film definitely gets it up, but has some commitment issues. Read full review
60
SlateDana StevensDec 13, 2010
Careening from bathos to bromance to naked sexytime, the movie is like a mashup of three or four different movies, at least two of them fairly unpleasant. And yet Love and Other Drugs is so sincere and unjaded about its mystifying purpose that it keeps our gaze fixed on the screen for the full two hours. Read full review
60
EmpireOlly RichardsDec 13, 2010
Well above the standards of your average romantic comedy, it's funny, sexy and smart. It's just not smart enough to stick to its guns to the end. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanDec 13, 2010
We never really forget we're watching two highly paid professionals create a cinematic placebo, strong enough to entertain without making a long-term impact. Fortunately, everyone works just hard enough to sell us on the whole thing anyway. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzDec 13, 2010
Zwick can't seem to decide what the movie is - a refreshingly frank comedy about sex and commitment, or a more-serious look at illness and its effect on relationships. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumDec 13, 2010
An old-fashioned romance-and-sickness picture, a publicity-grabbing sex picture, an Apatow-lite horny-boys picture, and a liberal satire on pharmaceutical-industry excesses committed in pursuit of pill sales - all in one. Read full review
50
TimeMary PolsDec 13, 2010
While Hathaway and Gyllenhaal have good chemistry, and director Edward Zwick moves the narrative along nicely, the film is too self-satisfied to be genuinely touching. Read full review
50
VarietyJustin ChangDec 13, 2010
A jagged little pill that, in the end, goes down too smoothly. Read full review
50
ObserverRex ReedDec 13, 2010
You can't fault the theme that life's darkest moments brighten when two people need each other, but there's no drug strong enough to get me through another movie like Love and Other Drugs. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter TraversDec 13, 2010
Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal are hotties with talent. And they maneuver through the daunting maze of shifting tones and intersecting plots of Love and Other Drugs like the pros they are. Read full review
50
Boxoffice MagazinePam GradyDec 13, 2010
The movie never strikes a balance between its comic and dramatic halves and that dooms it. It is an almost good film that flounders, because there is no treatment for tone deafness. Read full review
50
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanDec 13, 2010
Gyllenhaal and Hathaway exert considerable powers of hangdog charm and fierce independence, trying to give firm shape to the saggy script. But if you want to watch these two struggle through an up-and-down screen relationship, rent "Brokeback Mountain." Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsDec 13, 2010
They put the "obvious" in "obvious." Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesDec 7, 2010
I suppose when you make a movie, however tangentially, about Viagra, you're required to insert at least one scene of its side effects, but the broadness with which Zwick plays it out is like a stake to the heart of the film's hard-earned but fast-lost authenticity. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinDec 13, 2010
Love & Other Drugs is crazily uneven, jumping back and forth between jerk-off jokes and Parkinson's sufferers sharing their stories of hope. It's the sort of movie in which half the audience will be drying their eyes and the other half rolling them. Read full review
38
Washington PostAnn HornadayDec 13, 2010
A jagged little pill of a movie from baby boomer avatar Edward Zwick. Read full review
38
New York PostKyle SmithDec 13, 2010
Porno plus Parkinson's don't quite add up to sexy fun. Read full review
30
Chicago ReaderJ.R. JonesDec 13, 2010
A watered-down satire of the pharmaceutical industry. Read full review
20
Village VoiceEric HynesDec 13, 2010
Buried somewhere in Zwick's film might be a topical modern romance, maybe even a health care satire, but you'd need to dig past layers of creative desperation to find it. Read full review
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