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Movie Review: Friends With Benefits

Director: Will Gluck
Starring: Justin Timberlake, Mila Kunis

Ah rom-coms, a loveable, yet worn and stilted genre. Baffling in its persistent popularity. This year we had two studios attempt to modernize the genre tackling the eternal conundrum of casually sexy adult relationships; earlier this year we had No Strings Attached and now Friends With Benefits. It's tricky; can casual sex work? At what point can/ does/ will it become something more? Should it be anything more? The answer is predictable, fortunately though, F's W B's shines where No Strings Attached fell miserably flat in that it's actually funny. Imagine! Rom-com in which the latter syllable is more than just a rhyme. In other news, Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis are really hot.

And I mean Really Hot. They have come a long way since *N Sync and That 70's Show, respectively. The eye candy, snappy dialogue and zazzy one-liners go a long way to distract you from an absence of plot - Bazinga! The premise is in the title. Need I elaborate? Ok then, Jamie (Kunis) the recruiter headhunts and creatively convinces Dylan (Timberlake) to move to New York from LA. In NY they become - wait! Spoiler alert!!! Friends With Benefits!! Hilarity ensues. The best part of this film is the chemistry between the two leads. It's tangible and tasty and as such they successfully capture that "I'm feeling something I promised I wouldn't and it's spinning behind my eyes but I'm going to keep my mouth shut so I don't screw this up" scenario we all know and hate. The supporting cast features Woody Harrelson keeping it fresh and gorgeously gay and Jenna Elfman injects some well played down-to-earthiness.

F's W B's sticks to the 'boy meets girl, loses girl, gets her back' narrative of every love story ever told, deviating only in the respect that this aims to be a lust story where love is the complication rather than the goal. F's W B's is fairly self-aware, mocking rom-com film convention in the first quarter, which is fine. Funny even - until without any perceptible trace of irony they drag out some of the most obviously clichéd death rolls of The Romantic Comedy, succumbing to the flawed ideology of the genre anyway. Unbelievable! The last quarter gets a little heavy handed broaching subjects like disability and illness as means of enacting character growth, which seemed unduly serious and little bit emotionally manipulative. Maybe it paid of though because I actually found a bit of love for these characters in my shriveled and jaded little heart. F's W B's and No Strings Attached seem to purport that casual sex is not a viable option and that we're all just deluded closet romantics. I resent the notion that casual sex can't stay casual but I think what they're really trying to do is remind us not get so caught up in our post modern retro-tour of love-free free-love that you forget how to recognize a good thing. Rom-coms tell us to be brave. To reach out and shoot for love as it sashays past (all wide eyed and flirty) on the lazy susan of your lovely sexual smorgasbord. Call me a romantic. Ha.

xxx
MM

3.5/ 5

Written By Maddy Maine