No "When Harry Met Sally"

Rating: Null/10 (18 July 2011)

In 1989, the classic rom-com "When Harry Met Sally" posed the question of whether a guy and a gal could just be friends without sex getting in the way. A little over two decades later, "No Strings Attached" asks whether they can just have sex without love taking over. Of course, we are now in the age when so many rom-coms are much more sexually explicit and here we have an excessive number of references to body parts and sexual activity. Yet there is very little visual explicitness and the only naked body on show is male.
Diminutive (5' 3") Natalie Portman is obviously trying to do something totally different from her intense role in "Black Swan" as Emma, a doctor with commitment issues, and, pretty though she is, this is not a natural role for her. Tall (6' 2") Ashton Kutcher is more at home as Adam, an aspiring television writer who is originally willing to go along with the sex-only partnership. Like "When Harry Met Sally", "No Strings Attached" is written by a woman (Elizabeth Meriwether) and directed by a veteran of comedy films (Ivan Reitman) but it is not in the same class, while still being moderately funny and engaging.