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During the first few minutes of Friends with Benefits, something wildly unrealistic happens: a character played by Andy Samberg breaks up with a character played by Mila Kunis, and she stands there outraged and frustrated, rather than just turning around and walking towards the sea of guys who'd fall to their knees if she gave any of them the time of day. In case you're wondering why I find this unrealistic, I suggest you take a second look at a picture of Samberg and Kunis, and then get back to me. The good news is, though, that the lack of realism pretty much ends in that initial scene. While the final act of Friends with Benefits is tainted by two or three inevitable Hollywood cliches, the film offers a genuine, refreshingly funny and zany exploration of a guy and a girl who decide to have a strictly physical, romance-free relationship.
Considering that there has been a sudden barrage of movies about this exact same subject, the film's freshness deserves special commendation. At the end of last year, we got the surprisingly good Love and Other Drugs (which I liked so much that I couldn't resist including as an honorary mention for 2010), and then once the new year began, we got No Strings Attached, which lied to us, by basically claiming that it was a film about "friends with benefits," yet all it really has is a montage during the first act that featured quick, clean snippets of the two leads having sex, and once that was over, it all descended into standard romcom material. Thankfully, the same doesn't happen with Friends with Benefits. Sure, it eventually descends into similar territory, but at least it uses the MAJORITY of its running time (rather than just 10 minutes) to explore the pros and cons of having a sex-only relationship. What makes the film even better is that instead of having sanitized montages like the one in No Strings Attached, it's actually interested in some of the funny/awkward things that anyone who's had sex is aware of, even if most romantic comedies are afraid to show them. The two characters warn each other about the body parts where they're ticklish and the like, and there's an uproarious scene that captures the all-too-true complications of needing to pause the sex in order to pee and then realizing that it's kind of difficult to pee with a hard-on. Some may consider these things crass, while I think of them as a breath of fresh air, because of their authenticity.
Dylan (Justin Timberlake) lives in Los Angeles and works as the art director for a very successful blog, which has had millions of views over the last month. But after his girlfriend dumps him, it seems like maybe he wants to try something new and get a fresh start elsewhere (even though he claims he doesn't really need it), so he goes to New York for a job interview for a position as editor of GQ Magazine. Jamie (Mila Kunis) is the recruiter in charge of Dylan, so she goes to get him at the airport to take him to the interview. Quickly after Dylan gets out of the interview, he's offered the job. Great - but now it's nighttime, and Dylan doesn't know anyone else in New York. Jamie offers to take him out to walk around and get a drink. Before you start rolling your eyes, I should tell you that the scenes that follow aren't those typical cute/romantic "walking next to the river" scenes in which the two leads magically fall in love in two minutes. The scenes feel exactly like what it would be like if someone you recently met in a city is taking you out to have some fun for the night. Once Dylan has settled into the new job, he starts becoming friendlier with Jamie, and they talk about how they wish they could just be with someone without all the emotional baggage. And that's how the titular relationship gets started.
In the midst of the inevitable clumsiness involved in Dylan and Jamie's attempts at keeping it all physical, there are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments. Two of the technology-related ones (one involves an iPad that actually has a bible in it, while the other involves an iPhone application that can tell when a woman is on her period) had me in stitches. Patricia Clarkson makes a delightful appearance as Jamie's sex-crazed mother, and the running joke involving the mysterious ethnicity of Jamie's father hits the right note every time it's delivered. And credit has to go to Timberlake for having no problem poking fun at his singing days in plenty a scene during the film. There's an effervescence to the scenes between Dylan and Jamie that works well particularly because it isn't dragged down by those initial overly-cute moments that we see in the first half of most romantic comedies. Those moments are substituted here by frank conversations about sex/relationships and by some occasionally hilarious gags. One of the plot-related reliefs that we get here is that, because Dylan is a newcomer to New York, he doesn't really know anyone or have any friends there, which means that we don't have to be exposed to the cliche we often get in romantic comedies in which the guy has two or three buddies who are used for purposes of inserting slapstick humor into the proceedings.
There are times at which Friends with Benefits tries to set itself up as an anti-romantic comedy. Comedic actors Jason Segel and Rashida Jones have a particularly funny cameo, playing the stars of the romantic film that Dylan and Jamie watch and make fun of. The scenes are over-the-top and rife with all the predictable lines of romcoms, and it's obvious that Segel and Jones had a riot of a time filming them. My problem is that the film uses this as a means of criticism, but then does some of the same things in the final act: is it because the film simply relents and decides that it should still end as all romantic comedies do in order to satisfy the mainstream, or is it some deeper form of criticism? When the movie that Dylan and Jamie are watching ends and the credits start rolling, the song "Hey Soul Sister" by Train starts playing, and Dylan wisely and wittily remarks on how silly it is that these movies end with a song that has nothing to do with the movie, in order to "make people feel like they had a good time." But curiously enough, the same tune plays over the end of Friends with Benefits. Is it meant to be ironic, or do they actually think that they NEED to make the audience feel like they had a good time?
If it's the latter, it may have something to do with the fact that, as you'll predict, the film's second half does devolve into standard territory in which true feelings start to spark and things seem to start leading up to a final scene in which the two lovebirds will embrace and all will be right with the world. The reason why Friends with Benefits still deserves a passing grade is that, by this point, it has still at least done a good job of creating sizzling chemistry between Dylan and Jamie, and we've also had plenty of laughs in the process. What I definitely don't understand, though, is the insistence of romantic comedies on always having the male lead's father be a source of trouble that inevitably leads to a redemptive moment that somehow serves as the engine for the "Go get her" moment. As much as I appreciate Richard Jenkins' presence in the cast (and his performance is predictably great), this aspect feels a little bit too familiar.
Kunis and Timberlake are terrific. What I like about Kunis is that she plays sassy characters who actually have interesting things to say - she doesn't coast on attractiveness alone to carry herself through films, as so many other actresses who look like her do. Timberlake is often extremely funny, and obviously not ashamed of poking fun at himself, though he's had more chances than Kunis to display his acting prowess in other, better films (see Alpha Dog and The Social Network). The film works more often than it doesn't, thanks to their chemistry and to some solid humorous moments. Like I said back when I reviewed No Strings Attached, what I'm more interested in seeing is a more serious film that explores the toils and troubles of what it means to really try to go through with a sex-only friendship. But Friends with Benefits deserves much credit for milking the funny awkwardness of the titular situation as well as it does, despite the fact that, during the final act, it devolves into the same type of material that it had earlier criticized.
6/10
