A film with nothing

Rating: 1/10 (29 July 2011)

Friends with Benefits seems like it might be a satire of Nora Ehpron's feel good films,or Neil Simon's one dimensional types with just TV cracks as substitutes for any kind of genuine dialogue. Not the case here. This film makes Ephron's screenplays and directed films, along with N. Simon's stuff, look like classics. Friends with Benefits has no acting in it, except for Patricia Clarkson, and she is debased as one of those old women- mothers who swear and screw around with men etc.
There isn't one line that is funny,there is not a scene between Timberlake and Kunis that has any chemistry to it. He is always seen as potentially gay, and Woody Harrelson's gay character keeps us wondering, if anyone would care to wonder.
Timberlake plays it all as sort of gay and sort of straight, but comes up neuter. I think the reason why there are so many nude shots of him is because you never take his gender seriously, like one of the dwarfs in Snow White, you never fear for Snow White's sexual safety; the dwarfs have nothing that would cause fear. So it is with Timberlake. Even when there is sex between Kunis and Timberlake, it looks like wrestling at summer camp.
The Altzheimer scenes are appalling, along with the gay male model scenes that are deeply homophobic.
This film needed a script, director, producer, and stars, not non-actors, who stomp around the set with no sense of mimesis, mimicking at all.
Avoid this, and watch "The Nanny."