Sunday, May 22, 2011

Movie: Love & Other Drugs

We've had Netflix for a couple weeks (and we're loving it!). The movie I saw the other day really moved me. Love & Other Drugs was a really good movie.

In the film, Maggie (Anne Hathaway) and Jamie (Jake Gyllenhaal) have a relationship that evolves from all physical (with no attachment) to love. Maggie has early-onset Parkinson's, a disease without a cure. She doesn't want her disease to define her. I hate to spoil any part of such a great movie, but the following scene just broke me down (I tried relentlessly to find a good video of it to attach, but the best I have is the script).
Jamie: I'm full of s***, okay? No I'm... I'm *knowingly* full of s***. Because, uh... because uh, uh... I have... I have *never* cared about anybody or anything in my entire life. And the thing is, everybody just kind of accepted that. Like, "That's just Jamie." And then you!... Jesus. *You*. You. You didn't see me that way. I have never known anyone who actually believed that I was enough. Until I met you. And then you made me believe it, too. So, uh... unfortunately... I need you. And you need me.
Maggie: No I don't.
Jamie: Yes you do.
Maggie: No I don't.
Jamie: *Yes*, you do.
Maggie: Stop it, stop saying that.
Jamie: You need someone to take care of you.
Maggie: No, I don't!
Jamie: Everybody does.
Maggie: I'm gonna need you more than you need me.
Jamie: That's okay.
Maggie: [crying] No it's not! It isn't *fair*! I have places to go!
Jamie: You'll go there. I just may have to carry you.
Maggie: ...I can't ask you to do that.
Jamie: You didn't. 
Maggie, in the end of that scene is how I feel so often... "I'm gonna need you more than you need me... It isn't *fair*!" I feel frustrated by the fact that I have an incurable illness. I hate that Jeremy needs to take care of me and help me so much. I don't think any of this is fair.

Luckily, Jamie's response to Maggie is how Jeremy is to me... "That's okay... You'll go there. I may just have to carry you... You didn't [ask me to carry you]." Jeremy has told me that he doesn't resent needing to take care of me. Jeremy and I were together long before my accident, so we're learning this disability-stuff together. I'm so blessed to have someone that loves me no matter what.

  
http://youtu.be/hU7TIWjPITo 

“Sometimes the things you want the most don’t happen and what you least expect happens. I don’t know – you meet thousands of people and none of them really touch you. And then you meet that one person and your life is changed, forever.”
-Jamie Randall (in Love & Other Drugs)

5 comments:

  1. I agree, a very moving scene about need and love.

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  2. We were watching that DVD in bed last week, and I ended up turning away and crying myself to sleep at that part. I did not expect the movie to hit that close to home. :(

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  3. Loved that movie!

    I felt the same way...and Jesse said the same thing!

    Guess you and I are both pretty lucky!

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  4. My husband has MS and is in a wheelchair (he also has diabetes - bonus) and then in 2005 we add in chronic daily headache pain for me (plus depression and anxiety- bonus).

    Both of us, sometimes on the same day, have been on both sides of this conversation. It's true. It's not fair. Any of it.

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  5. Reminds me of how very, very grateful I am for my husband, who married me without knowing I'd one day be in chronic pain and who has not changed one iota toward me.

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