Review: Love & Other Drugs (2010)

What's most surprising about Ed Zwick's Love & Other Drugs is just how fatally bland it ends up being. I mean, the film is quite literally a disease and a few sex scenes away from starring Gerard Butler. 
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The workmanlike Ed Zwick puts down his race-relations historical dramas for the time being, but Love & Other Drugs is nothing more than a sporadically amusing romantic comedy-turned-weeper that uses the guise of the mid-90's pharmaceutical sales revolution and the melodramatics of impending disability to conceal a film that's hopelessly middle-brow and restrictively platitudinous. 
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Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway elevate the material as best as they can (plus Steven Fierberg's intentionally drab 90's lensing grants the film a period-appropriate visual identity) but ultimately there are just too many musty old hats in this bag (the token fat guy roomie, the climactic confessional speech) that the film quickly takes on the appearance of a conveniently-written piece of fluff.  
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The irony here in a film that rather boldly and explicitly features its two stars without the benefit of clothing is that, in fact, the most shocking thing about Love & Other Drugs is just how utterly uninspiring it manages to be. [C-]