Review: ‘No Strings Attached’
If you sit through enough predictable Hollywood romantic comedies, you'll find yourself wishing that someone -- anyone! anyone at all! -- would come up with some new wrinkles to the familiar formula. So maybe we should applaud "No Strings Attached" for trying to be a more honest look at modern relationships. But after sitting through this thoroughly obnoxious film, I actually caught myself yearning for the pleasant inanity of a "Leap Year" or "Made of Honor."
Directed by the once-great Ivan Reitman ("Ghostbusters"), "No Strings Attached" concerns two friends: Adam (Ashton Kutcher) and Emma (Natalie Portman). First meeting at camp as kids, they end up bumping into each other "When Harry Met Sally"-style at a college frat party and then later in Los Angeles, where he works for a tween TV show and she has just moved to begin her residency. One morning they hook up, liking the sex enough to decide to agree to a unique pact (at least for a romantic comedy): They're going to be friends with benefits. Rather than going on dates or calling each other boyfriend and girlfriend, they'll just have fun, meaningless booty calls. For the commitment-phobic Emma, the arrangement allows her not to have to worry about managing a relationship while she slogs through the long hours at the hospital. For Adam, the deal sounds totally awesome, although it's clear pretty early on that he's developing feelings for her, which would complicate the whole situation.
These days, romantic comedies come in two forms: You've either got the initially hostile pair who realize deep down that they love each other, or you've got the platonic longtime friends who realize deep down that they love each other. The reality of "No Strings Attached" is that the characters aren't exactly in either rom-com category: They don't really know each other that well but just really dig the sex. In that same unconventional spirit, the characters discuss topics like periods and penises when they're not swearing or screwing. If the film's R rating wasn't enough to make it apparent, "No Strings Attached" very much wants the audience to know, "Hey, look at us! We're not some generic, genteel romantic comedy!"
But the thing is, take away the "naughty" words and the partial nudity, and "No Strings Attached" is really just like any other romantic comedy -- except worse. At least your run-of-the-mill "Going the Distance" tries to be somewhat charming. Elizabeth Meriwether's screenplay instead goes for a smart-aleck tone that's supposed to show how hip it is about contemporary relationships that fall outside the boundaries of conventional love stories. But "No Strings Attached" mostly makes you want to slap these people -- not because Adam and Emma are thumbing their nose at traditional relationships but because the filmmakers aren't really interested in exploring the realities of this unique situation. Really, Reitman wants to make a pretty standard rom-com that thinks it's edgy because it has Kevin Kline, gay jokes, and members of the "Saturday Night Live" cast in throwaway roles. It's all a bit desperate and embarrassing.
As for the two leads, well, they are what they are. There's no question Kutcher can be a likeable onscreen presence -- he's starting to corner the market on "guys with puppy-dog eyes" roles -- but dramatic heft isn't his specialty, and Adam's deepening feelings for Emma prove much too much for him as an actor. Portman is more of a disappointment, probably because you expect more from her. But Emma is a character she never quite conquers: She's supposed to be this bright young woman who's scared of relationships, but she comes across as just cold and heartless. Compare her performance to Zooey Deschanel's in "500 Days of Summer," in which she played a legitimately complicated young woman who didn't believe in love, no matter how close she got to the smitten Joseph Gordon-Levitt. There were layers and nuance in Deschanel's performance, as there were in that whole movie. "No Strings Attached" doesn't have layers: It's too busy being proud for how "naughty" it is to worry about such things like that.
Grade: D
