enjoyable romcom trying to be ironic about romcoms

Rating: 6/10 (2 July 2012)

Olivier or Oscar worthy this is not. Enjoyable, likable and fun this most definitely is. Mila Kunis is the believable headhunter wanabe-happily-living-in-a-post-romcom-disillusion world, who falls in like with Justin Timberlake, the unlikely prince charming given his commitment issues. It's predictable, the trailer showed too much, and at times it's just a vehicle to show Justin's six-pack (I'm not complaining) against the back/front drop of the beautiful Kunis. Their chemistry is great, you liked them together, and that really added to the film's premise of the titular friends with their bedroom benefits.
It's not all silly, there were touching moments, the two leads dealing with family and life issues - wayward Mum and Dad with Alzeimer's - but there's a lot of genuine humour with some very clever writing and witty one-liners (some of which I'm pretty sure were Harrelson (playing gay sports writer at GQ) ad-libbing) and he brought superb comic-extra-relief with his "strikily dickily" rather sound but usually crude relationship advice.
This IS formulaic, of course, but it actually mocks that... narrates it, even. It's trying to do romcom ironically, and it works rather well... it's quite honest, and I liked that. Also beautiful shots of NYC and LA (*sigh*) to add lustre to a rather stylish well-groomed GQ-esque look to the film. I liked this a lot more than I expected to; was prepared to be "meh!" but actually wouldn't be averse to seeing it again. Maybe. If it came on TV.