Jamie Randall is a sex-crazed maniac. He hits on women and beds them compulsively, which gets him fired from his job. His brother gets him a job as a sales representative for Pfizer, an up-and-coming big pharmaceutical company in the 1990s. Jamie is certainly good at selling himself to the ladies in the world, it would seem only logical that he could sell the idea of new medicines to doctors. However, he is given Zoloft to sell... at the height of the popularity of a similar drug called Prozac. Doctors turn him down left and right, and at one point, he is even beaten up by the sales rep for Prozac, who essentially tells him to stay out of their territory. One day, after constant harassment of a particular doctor, he is allowed to sit in on an examination of Maggie, a young woman with the early stages of Parkinson's. Jamie, naturally, goes to bed with Maggie, and they begin having casual sex. One night, when he finds himself unable to be physically turned on, Maggie alerts him to the existence of an erectile dysfunction drug that his own company has begun advertising. When Jamie's boss informs him that Viagra is about to hit the market, Jamie begs him for a chance to be the Viagra rep in the region. He gets the gig and begins to find terrific success. Meanwhile, his relationship with Maggie grows more serious, and he finds himself no longer wanting mere casual sex. However, Maggie, knowing that death is imminent for her, doesn't want anything more than a casual relationship, denying her own feelings for Jamie in the hopes of protecting herself and him from more hurt down the road. He begins to learn more about the disease, even attending a discussion group for victims of the disease and their family members. He gets advice from a husband of a woman with Parkinson's to leave the relationship before it gets too hard. When Jamie is given an opportunity by Pfizer to go work in the lucrative Chicago market, he is confronted with a choice: take the easy road to money and avoid the pain of slow death, or turn down the job in order to spend as much time as possible with the woman he loves.
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Best part of story, including ending:
For the first half hour, Love and Other Drugs is more of a sex comedy than anything else, which makes it mildly entertaining. However, it soon sinks into depressing melodrama and goes way too long.
Best scene in story:
In the middle, Jamie catches his brother pleasuring himself to a sex tape Jamie made with Maggie, which obviously creates some amusing situational comedy.
Opinion about the main character:
Jamie is kind of a jerk but he's a lovable jerk, certainly a charmer with the ladies, and the decisions that he makes down the stretch of this movie are admirable.
