Friends with eventually regular Hollywood clichés

Rating: 5/10 (23 July 2011)

There is a recurring adjective that is attached with Mila Kunis's character Jamie which is used by all her sex partners to their advantage i.e. she is emotionally damage. According to Justin Timberlake's character even Magnum P.I cannot solve the case of what's going through Jamie's head when she thinks relationships. What makes a person emotionally damaged is not really elaborated in the movie. She is raised by a single mother, but the quest to know who her father was, is more or less laughed off. While she breaks up with her relationship with Andy Sandberg, it seems she has enough admirers as Shaun White is shown as one of her secret admirer and she also has a passionate set of friends with whom she parties around. So what exactly is her state of being emotionally damaged related to? Or is it a statement that would help the director bring some complications with her friend that provides sexual benefits Justin Timberlake! That might be the case in this totally romantic comedy film.
The new romantic comedy 'Friends with benefits', which does not shy away from taking a shot at mocking at every romantic comedy clichés, more or less falls into trappings of the romantic genre from the beginning. Mila Kunis (Jamie), a corporate headhunter in New York, is just out of a relationship with SNL fame Andy Sandberg, while an upcoming blogger in Los Angeles, Justin Timberlake (Dylan) is also dealing with a break up with his girlfriend played by Emma Stone. When Jamie sets up an interview for Dylan at GQ magazine, he comes up in New York and meets Jamie for the first time at the airport. Right from the beginning Jamie performs all the cute stunts a romantic comedy female lead is expected to but also balances out by mocking Hollywood's take on romance and New York. Soon after Dylan moves into NY City to take up the job, Jamie gets him into her friends circle and they both start hanging out together watching Hollywood Romantic comedies and mocking it. But they both are missing sexual intimacy in their lives and since Jamie is emotionally damaged and Dylan claims to be emotionally unavailable they both decide to have just a sexual relationship without any emotions involved.
It's all fine and dandy till all the sex lasts for them and unfortunately for the audience as well. Once the sex dries up the movie just goes south and we are introduced to all the regular clichéd family characters. As Dylan takes Jamie to his home in Los Angeles for the 4th of July weekend, we are introduced to Dylan's good hearted elder sister Jenna Elfman (Annie) and her magic obsessed son Sam and more importantly Dylan's Alzheimer inflicted father Mr. Harper played earnestly by Richard Jenkins. The stories about Dylan's not so happy childhood is what eventually melts the heart of our emotionally damaged Jamie and they go on to have their first sexual encounter added with emotions. But these emotions are only noticed by the emotionally damaged girl, while emotionally unavailable boy clearly ignores and start off a chain reaction of complications in their friendship. So this is what is served as suspense romantic complications to our audience and since this is a pre-determined summer blockbuster the eye candy and emotionally hopeless couple have to get back together. How? Well with the usual Hollywood charm and pot full of cliché ridden sequences.
For a movie that mocked the romantic comedy genre at regular intervals during the first half of the movie, it was quiet an irony that it had to use more or less the clichés from that same genre to bring the movie around its eventual happy ending. And for all the dissing of Katherine Heigl by Mila Kunis, she is the new Ms. Heigl for romantic comedies. Easy on eyes with magnetic screen presence Ms. Kunis has the charm to breeze through the clichés of this particular genre of films. Justin Timberlake also provides an insight of what to expect in the future in his acting career as he also elegantly passes romantic comedy test.
As for the film, apart from the intimate relationship and scenes between Justin and Mila, it always seems to be hanging on extreme to carry some laughs. Woody Harrelson plays its Gay sports editor part with good amount of enthusiasm, but Patricia Clarkson as Mila's flirtatious sex obsessed mother just tries to be extreme and we should be thankful that few scenes from the promotional videos were edited out from the final reel. While there is another extreme moment between Justin and his wild date who tries to act as being wild in bed by licking and smelling Mr. Timberlake's armpit, which neither grosses out nor induces laughter but guarantees yawn from the audience.
To an audience who has seen it all in this year's romantic comedy hit 'No strings attached', which was also about friends 'hooking up' just for the pleasure of the whole act; Friends with benefit has nothing new or better to offer. It glides along on the charm of its two leads, but fails to hide its flaws as a good romantic comedy entertainer.
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