Just Like The Movies

FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS (2011)

No Strings Attached. There, I said it. That’s the movie that must be spoken about before you have any sort of conversation about Friends with Benefits. No Strings Attached came out earlier this year and the plot is almost exactly similar to Friends with Benefits. Young people, casual sex, sex leads to love - You know the drill. While I didn’t hate No Strings Attached, I would like to believe that that Friends with Benefits is a better movie. I give credit to writer/ director Will Gluck who gave us two (really) funny movies in Easy A (2010) and Fired Up (2009). Friends with Benefits is a film that knows its clichés, it is aware of its boundaries (shortcomings maybe?) and yet it finds characters that can be refreshing and funny.  I hope this movie had come out before No Strings Attached. It would have easily got a better run at the box office and a wider audience. Pity that Kunis and Timberlake aren’t bigger stars than Kutcher and Portman. It isn’t the most original romantic comedy but it certainly is very enjoyable and has more repeat value than No Strings Attached.

I want to stop comparing it to No Strings Attached right about now. Mila Kunis plays Jamie who is a headhunter living in New York. She recruits Dylan who is played by Justin Timberlake as the art director for GQ magazine. This is how they meet and the rest is a plot on auto-pilot. This is also the part where I talk about Mila Kunis and her divine gift of hotness. She is so hot it is distracting. I first saw her in Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008) and couldn't stop raving about her. Her impressive turn in Black Swan (2010) made me consider her as a legit actress. But who knew she is this good at comedy? Even Justin Timberlake for that matter. He’s no Marlon Brando but he sure is turning out better than a pop-star turned actor ought to be. A movie like this also 'benefits' from a supporting cast as splendid as this: Woody Harrelson, Richard Jenkins, Patricia Clarkson and Jenna Elfman. Cameos by Emma Stone, Jason Segel, Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg are hilarious. To make Woody Harrelson play that character is an amazing feat.

This movie is extremely enjoyable. Although it does have its fair share of limitations. It could have done with a better script by Will Gluck, considering the amount of potential he showed in his previous films. I could whine about a lot more but I choose not to. It is a standard rom-com, we already know what’s going to happen but watching these people talk and the chemistry they strike is what kept it going in the right direction. One of the running jokes in the film is how the characters are aware of romantic fairy-tales and romantic comedies. I mean, honestly, how many of us have not said this dialogue that Kunis says in the movie at least once in our lives?: “Sometimes I wish my life was like a movie”. My favorite joke, which comes right in the first scene, is related to this. (About Pretty Woman, the movie): “If a prostitute and a businessman can fall in love, then anyone can!"

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