Watched: Prisoners. Love & Other Drugs

So... this was a weird night. I can't explain exactly how this double feature came about. No, that's a lie. I totally can. A few weeks ago, I was sitting here just minding my own business (like I do) when I saw someone mention Donnie Darko (on reddit, or facebook, or something?) and that led me to thinking about Jake Gyllenhaal and how his career has progressed kind of unevenly but still, I think, pretty interestingly. Like he's done some sort of commercial stuff and some arty stuff and some stuff somewhere in between. And I was thinking about how I really like it when he plays a weirdo, like in The Good Girl or DD or even (I would argue) Zodiac, because he's so pretty so when the character he's playing is kind of compulsive or troubled it's an interesting contrast. Brokeback Moutnain sort of falls into this category, although for different reasons, since he's not really a weirdo he's coming to terms with his identity and its complete lack of welcome in the only environment he considers home. Good film. Anyway! So I was like, "Huh, maybe I should check out Prisoners since he's supposed to play a kind of damaged, short-fuse detective in that film" (spoiler alert: I was not wrong!) and somehow that led to wondering about Love & Other Drugs, which I remember reading very mixed reviews about when it was released. Some saying that it was just a very tonally unsure film that wanted to be funny, romantic, crass, dramatic, tragic, whimsical, and cool and it just couldn't really balance all those things. I mostly agree with that and I think it doesn't help that for some reason I just never believe Anne Hathaway. I don't dislike her in the way a lot of the internet seems to... I just can never quite buy what  it is she's selling. So this is how I came to acquire and watch both movies at the same time. It was also an interesting contrast because while Prisoners is a deeply, intensely dark film with an almost-completely bleak ending that they only resolve in the last seconds of the film (although the viewer is still left with a LOT of heavy shit to process) Love & Other Drugs is this supposedly quirky, funny movie about a drug rep riding high on the Viagra wave while dating this sick girl. But it still hews mostly towards romantic comedy, until the last half hour where suddenly it's as though the people involved were like, "Oh wait, she's SICK?! Alright, let's crank up the dramatics to 11!!!"

I felt pretty meh about that, as you might imagine. I did however appreciate its general shapeless inoffensive quality after watching Prisoners. A palate cleanser, of sorts, if you will. Or whatever.

So dark, both visually and thematically. Just really messed up sad stuff. It really did remind me of Zodiac, although while I think the crime is shown as closer to home in Prisoners and I think the obsession-level in the characters affected is sky-high I still think Zodiac was just more effective at showing how something can sink its claws into you and never, ever let go. Prisoners doesn't have the running time, epic chronological scope, or claim of veracity that Zodiac does. But it's still a pretty effective, messed up film.

Really expensively furnished dumpsters are still dumpsters.