Directed by Will Gluck. Starring Mila Kunis, Justin Timberlake, Patricia Clarkson, Woody Harrelson, Jenna Elfman, Richard Jenkins, Emma Stone 16 cert, gen release, 109 min
WHO KNEW that a throwaway Hollywood romcom about commitment-free thrills would turn out to be far more romantic and realistic than the nominally grittier One Day,not to mention marginally more amusing and f'nar f'nar than that smash hit lark, The Inbetweeners?
The nifty Friends with Benefits,featuring Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis performing a will-they, won't they two-step, belongs to a new breed of romcom. The genre that used to rely on simpering Meg Ryans and lovelorn Julia Robertses is no more. And if you're hunting for Matthew McConaughey, he's back doing solid courtroom dramas, not sunning himself in a Caribbean idyll.
The box office has spoken and the dwindling returns indicate that nobody wants to see romantic heroines bang on about being unmarriageable or wearing outsized underpants anymore. Those still seeking luckless singletons and unappreciated rough diamonds will just have to make do with the romdram and dramedies based around Jennifer Aniston.
Friends with Benefits, like most of its contemporaries, features nothing so stupidly reactionary as some broad snivelling over ice cream in her pyjamas; this is a bromance, bro, that features a chick in the spot normally reserved for a second dude.
Who better to hammer nails into boring old man-woman romcom than the lovely, sassy Mila Kunis, who trills enough potty-mouthed banter to put her Family Guycolleagues in a comparatively prudish shade?
Playing New York headhunter Jamie, Kunis tracks down west coast art director Dylan (Justin Timberlake) and lures him to New York and a job at GQ.Once the contracts are signed, the pair remain best buds and, bonded together by trash talk and a mutual suspicion of Nora Ephron and Katherine Heigl flicks, agree terms for booty calls with no strings attached.
Soon enough, Dylan is running to gay MBF Woody Harrelson for romantic advice and a gender twist on a well-known formula. Soon enough, the film descends into the same airport-chasing cliches the lively couple sought to avoid.
Director Will Gluck keeps up the same bouncy pace that enlivened Easy A, but like that film , Friends with Benefitsis never quite as clever as it thinks. It would, however, require a much weaker vessel than this for the foxy onscreen spark between Kunis and Timberlake to lose its appeal.
