One of the “other drugs” in the title of the new film by Edward Zwick is Viagra, and the movie is not unlike the little blue pill: mostly designed to coddle the male ego as it provides some erectile assistance. I walked away from the film with one clear message: if you find someone gullible enough to believe your words, then your actions don’t matter. Charm and persuasion apply to relationships just as equally as they do to salesmanship, and the two aren’t really that far apart.

If the film had actually intended to be that crass and pessimistic, it could be given a pass for at least having the courage to be up front about its convictions. Instead, it buries those themes as subtext in a story that’s meant to be a touching tragicomic romance. The notion that we’re actually supposed to empathize with its protagonist is just kind of insulting.

Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Jamie, a living, breathing ball of undiluted libidinous charisma whose lust for the opposite sex outstrips his lust for life in general. Whip-smart, but largely lacking in ambition, Jamie gets fired from his job selling stereos (for screwing a coworker in the back room, of course) and he uses a family contact to get in on the ground floor of pharmaceutical sales with Pfizer. The story starts in 1996, just on the cusp of the introduction of Viagra. Until that game-changer is in place, most of Jamie’s time — shepherded by his more experienced sales partner, Bruce (Oliver Platt) — seems to be spent trying to get doctors to switch their prescriptions for depressives from Prozac to Xanax.