Love and Other Drugs: Further Thoughts

FIRST, check out Betsy’s insightful review of Love and Other Drugs on the blog Recently Diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease at: http://www.recentlydiagnosedwithpd.org/home/2010/11/27/love-and-other-drugs.html

THEN, read my thoughts below:

My husband, Tom and I also saw this movie the past weekend. We didn’t realize that the film was based on the non-fiction book Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman by Jamie Reidy (Now it makes sense that the film was rated “R” for sex, nudity and profanity—glad we didn’t take our 10 year old friend).

The main story deals with money, pharmaceutical companies, and doctors. The back story deals with a couple’s relationship, where Anne Hathaway plays Maggie Murdock, a woman in her twenties who was recently diagnosed with young onset Parkinson’s Disease. I was glad that the movie shattered society’s stereotype of the old, stooped-over person with Parkinson’s. However, in its place, is a beautiful twenty-something year old woman who exhibits little Parkinson’s symptoms except for an occasional resting tremor, who is obsessed with sex and when she is unable to obtain her Parkinson’s meds, drinks vodka instead.  As Betsy also indicated in her review, Maggie just doesn’t look and act like she has Parkinson’s.

Tom and I also cried at the touching scene where Maggie realizes that she will always need her partner more than he needs her and their uncertainty in the face of this devastating disease. Despite our tears, at least it got Tom and I talking about our future with my Parkinson’s and how it impacts him and our relationship. Love and Other Drugs will get other couples talking as well.

Comments

[Mary (Sullivan) Lewis]

Keith and I are waiting to Red Box this movie. (Can't make it to the theater with the babies) I've heard mixed reviews of this movie depending on whether or not the person reviewing the movie has PD. At any rate, it's nice to see PD in pop culture and hopefully getting a lot more exposure!

Thanks for the review!

[Aideen]

curious as to why the PD societies worldwide didn't maximise PR from this movie??