At least the acting is top-notch. Portman does a good job as the commitment-phobic, emotionally awkward Emma; her attempt at a sympathetic hug looks like a poorly timed judo hold. Kutcher counters with his happy-gangly thing. If actors were dogs, he’d be a Great Dane. Their (small) circle of friends includes such talent as Jake M. Johnson, Ludacris, Mindy Kaling (from TV’s The Office) and Greenberg’s Greta Gerwig.
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In many ways, No Strings plays like a more tame version of the recent Love & Other Drugs, with a touch less nudity and none of that depressing early-onset Parkinson’s. Here it’s pretty clear that Kutcher is in the “female” role, as the one who yearns for post-coital spooning, when all Portman wants is to jump in the sack.
Unfortunately, the old switcheroo will take you only so far, and it doesn’t excuse such laziness as setting your movie in Los Angeles and giving half the characters jobs in the entertainment field.
One senses a bit of wish-fulfilment from the writers when Kutcher’s character tries to pen a script for a TV show. References to rapper Lil Wayne and the homemade narcotic “purple drank,” meanwhile, feel like the 64-year-old Reitman trying to get young.
There’s an interesting backstory to the film’s name, which was changed to No Strings Attached from Friends with Benefits when it was learned that a similar movie with that title was in the works. It stars Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis, and is set to open July 22. The pairing falls somewhere between duelling asteroid movies and rival Truman Capote biopics, but I fear I’ll be comparing both to When Harry Met Sally . and finding them wanting. You never forget your first love. Continue reading “Of course, the biggest difference in that one was that both Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal were shallow, sex-obsessed characters”