Friends With Benefits - Grading & Discussion

[Agent Richard07]

Welcome to the grading & discussion thread for Friends With Benefits.
[highlight]***SPOILERS AHEAD***[/highlight]

"A young female headhunter (Mila Kunis) in New York convinces a potential
recruit (Justin Timberlake) to leave his job in San Francisco behind and accept
a job in the big apple. Despite an attraction to each other, both realize they’re
everything they’ve been running from in a relationship and decide to become
friends….with benefits. It’s the perfect arrangement–until they realize there’s
no such thing as no strings attached." - Moviehole

Official Website | Trailer | IMDb Page | Wikipedia Entry
Box Office Mojo Page | Rotten Tomatoes Page
Metacritic Page | Roger Ebert's Review​

 

[Locutus of Bored]

I thought Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher both gave weak performances and the film fell flat in the humor department.

 

[Agent Richard07]

This one looks raunchier than No Strings Attached, so I'm looking forward to it.

 

[Agent Richard07]

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7-LG9KSLCA[/yt]

I just saw this and since you can probably guess where the story goes, I'll just talk about the other things needed to carry the movie and make it interesting, like good characters and good delivery. Does it have that? I'd say so. Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake deliver as good looking 20-somethings who are getting over relationships and don't want anything serious when they first meet and hit it off. As actors, they both handle the relationship stuff, the sex talk and the action in bed quite well. It almost came off like they were ad-libbing some of their dialog. As if the director just set the camera on them and let them have at it in a lot of scenes. The two characters also make fun of romantic comedies and their various clichés, and in a number of cases, the movie actually goes with those clichés just so that it, or the two leads can poke fun at them. How does this movie compare to No Strings Attached? I'd say they're about the same, but this movie has more of that seemingly ad-libbed dialog I mentioned. And although there's nudity and more frankness in the sex talk and sex scenes, there isn't enough to make this the much raunchier movie I thought it would be. The raciest stuff is in the trailer. In the end, the movies are a lot more similar than I thought. I guess I'll say I prefer No Strings just because I'm a fan of Natalie Portman.

 

[Admiral_Young]

I was looking forward to "Friends With Benefits" over "No Strings Attached" so I'll probably see this eventually. Not for a couple of weeks though.

 

[AliciaD496]

Saw it at a matinee last weekend...and while there are superficial similarities Friends with Benefits is a different movie from No Strings Attached. In fact I'd probably compare FWB more to Going the Distance. No Strings Attached they'd had a previous on-and-off again acquaintanceship for years before finding each other again...FWB they were strangers at the beginning of the movie. In FWB they chose to have their relationship more out of the fact that she was the only person he knew in NYC initially and she needed a way to cope, while in No Strings he was coping with a breakup while she...it's hard to really tell what her motivation was honestly other than the physical pleasure. Like I said...some similarities.

Honestly? The characters in FWB were more likable and more relatable, they coped with real problems that real people have (bad break ups, ill parent, bad parent relationship) in a relatively realistic manner. No Strings Attached was a little...off the wall in that manner. The supporting cast in both was....alright, No Strings Attached only slightly better but Woody Harrelson stood out for the most in either movie. Anyway...that's my review.

 

[FPAlpha]

In short.. awesome first half, standard (i.e. mostly boring and formulaic) romantic comedy for the rest of the movie.

It had some awesome scenes in the beginning, especially the raunchy sex scenes with moments everyone who's got some experience in that area will recognize and laugh about. Sadly this funniness instantly evaporates when they inevitably fall for each other (come on.. that's not a spoiler.. it's a romantic comedy! ) and they go through the motions before ending up with each other.

It's much like The Proposal with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds.. Sandra Bullock is brilliant as the bitch boss and Reynolds as the assistant who hates her with a passion but once they start seeing each other as persons with qualities the movie turns dull.

FwB is ok for a video rental Sunday afternoon when you've exhausted your DVD rack and are not in the mood for some violence or other stuff.

 

[Guy Gardener]

It wasn't that bad, especially if you compare it to what Rashida and Jason were doing in the movie inside the movie.