No Strings Attached

Rating: 5/10 (9 July 2011)

From director Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters, Twins, Evolution), this came out in cinemas two months after Sex & Other Drugs, they were not competing the same year, but they are both similar films with subtle differences, I watched this one second. Basically Dr. Emma K. Kurtzman (Natalie Portman) and Adam Franklin (Ashton Kutcher) met each other in their youths at summer camp, and since then they have been bumping into each other few years, Adam writes and assists on a TV show and Emma is a nurse. One day Adam finds out that his washed up actor father Alvin (Kevin Kline) is having a relationship with his ex-girlfriend Vanessa (Ophelia Lovibond), and he goes out to forget all about it drowning in alcohol. Next morning he wakes up in Emma's house, he finds comfort in her to talk about many things in his personal life, and soon enough they have sex. This becomes a constant thing and they decide to become "sex friends", restricting the relationship to sex only, as she is not comfortable with dating or being completely in love with someone. She also decides to hide this sex only relationship from her friends and house-mates Patrice (Greta Gerwig) and Shira (Mindy Kaling), and for a while things are going well in the non serious sexual encounters. Adam starts to get jealous if she hangs out with other men, and he becomes even more distraught when he finds out his father Alvin and Vanessa are planning to have a baby, and Emma is getting increasingly uncomfortable with dating, even on Valentine's Day. It is when Adam announces that he loves her that she really gets angry, saying that he should be with someone who won't hurt her, and after dropping her off at a hospital they unofficially break up. Six weeks later production assistant Lucy (Lake Bell) submits a script Adam wrote for the show he works on, and it is accepted and he becomes an official script writer, while Emma is breaking down missing him, spending time with her sister Katie (Olivia Thirlby) who is getting married, and her widowed mother Sandra (Talia Balsam) who has a new boyfriend. She tries to call him but he seemingly ignores her, but she really wants to be with him and goes to his house, but she is devastated to see him arriving back with Lucy, but she misreads her being a new girlfriend. They were planning to have sex, but they are interrupted when Adam receives the devastating news that his father is in hospital having overdosed on cough syrup, and Vanessa confesses she no longer wants to be with an older man, or around any old people for that matter. After initially having a heated phone call, Adam and Emma get together to make up, and they attend her sister's wedding together wondering what will happen next, in the end we see them holding hands. Also starring Cary Elwes as Dr. Metzner, Chris 'Ludacris' Bridges as Wallace and Jake M. Johnson as Eli. Kutcher is I guess likable and charming enough, Portman, who starred in Black Swan around the same time, is beautiful and sweet as his love interest, and together they make a good on screen couple, it is not necessarily original with the in love, breaking up and back again part, and the "sex friends" that fall in love is a bit obvious, but it is not a bad romantic comedy. Worth watching!