Friends with Benefits (**½)
Directed
by: Will Gluck
Starring:
Justin Timberlake, Mila Kunis, Woody Harrelson, Richard Jenkins, Patricia
Clarkson, Jenna Elfman, Emma Stone, Andy Samberg, Jason Segel, Rashida Jones,
Shaun White, Nolan Gould
Seen:
October 6th 2011
**½
Out of ****
For a movie strictly about a concept I cannot reconcile myself with,
Friends with Benefits surprised me. It’s no award winner, but it has a certain
charm and heart that’s more missing than present recently. We start with Jamie (Kunis)
dumping her boyfriend Quincy (Samberg) in NY, and Dylan (Timberlake) dumping his
girlfriend Kayla (Stone) in LA, with both of them proclaiming their emotional
unavailability from this point on. Jamie is a corporate headhunter, and Dylan a
website/magazine editor. With Dylan coming to NY for a weekend, Jamie must sell
him on taking up a job at GQ magazine, and decides the best way to sell him on
it is to sell him on moving to NY.
They become friends, and soon they’re complaining about their physical
needs (greeds), eventually likening it to playing tennis. They decide to play “tennis”,
and for a while things go great, as they seem to manage to keep the “tennis”
and their friendship separate. But as is certain to happen in a situation like
this, the two start developing feelings, which they stubbornly hide behind the façade
of this thing between them still working, still being nothing more than the sex
(of which there is a lot in the movie, with little visual but very little left
for the imagination), as numerous “winning shots” are shown before the two always
fall back under L-shaped bed sheets (her upper body covered, his not).
The obligatory separation period in romantic comedies/dramas is a pet
peeve of mine, as it’s usually built on monumental stupidity and gross
misunderstanding either ignored or conveniently put aside to ensure a feature
film running length when joined with some elaborate resolution vaguely hinted
at earlier in the movie. It’s for the most part no different here, with the
exception of some great smaller storylines introduced here. Jamie’s mother Lorna
(Clarkson) is a child of the 60’s/70’s, and can’t/won’t remember who Jamie’s
dad is; while Dylan’s dad, Mr. Harper (Jenkins), suffers from early-onset
Alzheimer’s disease, and some beautiful and touching moments stem from this and
Dylan’s interaction with both his father and his sister Annie (Elfman).
There are several laugh out loud funny moments, and all the actors fit
their roles perfectly, with Timberlake not quite revisiting his form from The
Social Network, but concocting quite a strong chemistry with the just as
effective Kunis. A chemistry so strong in fact that the “separation period” seems
fake. Richard Jenkins is great as Dylan’s absent-minded father with moments of
clarity; Woody Harrelson is both hilarious and scarily convincing as Tommy,
Dylan’s gay friend; and Patricia Clarkson greatly reminds of her character in the
delightful Easy A earlier this year (also from director Will Gluck) as the
mother of Emma Stone’s Olive Penderghast. I mention as because early on Jamie
takes over a sign from an airport porter waiting on an O. Penderghast – an interesting
in-joke/reference.
Friends With Benefits is, amongst all the unnecessary simulated sex
and foul language, quite an enjoyable movie, and even while obviously warning the
viewer of events to come early in the movie, it still has you rooting for the
two main characters to end up together just before the end credits roll. And when
Jamie asks Dylan why they never make movies about what happens next, Dylan
responds that they do, and it’s called porn. Friends With Benefits skirts the
edges of porn, but in all of it, somewhere a sweet bit of innocence is hidden
in the first realisation of true love.
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