Friends with Benefits is one of those films you want to champion because you remember how much fun you had and how much you laughed, but at the same time there are a few missteps in-between that bring it back down to Earth. It’s a raunchy sex comedy that gets it right in so many ways you really wish director Will Gluck (Easy A) and co-writers Keith Merryman and David A. Newman hadn’t given in to convention in the end to settle their story. However, despite its imperfections, I find it an easy film to recommend for the fun and laughs it does offer.
The story centers on Jamie (Mila Kunis), a high profile New York City headhunter, who lures Dylan (Justin Timberlake), a recruit from San Francisco, to the Big Apple and a cush gig with GQ Magazine. Yes, as with all movies of this sort we’re asked to examine the problems of people with great jobs as they reside in their lavish apartments. All those typical cliches are here, but the film is funny enough you’re able to forgive convention.
The crux of the story, as the title insinuates, is that Jamie and Dylan decide they’re going to try and turn what blossoms into a great friendship into a sexual relationship, but do so without the emotional entanglements of becoming an actual couple. It’s a plot you and I could write in our sleep. You already know what’s going to happen as things will be great at first, only to fail in the middle, leaving room for a third act reconciliation. You see it coming before you even step into the theater, which means Gluck and Co. are going to have to deliver enough laughs, and make you care enough about each character, to ensure you don’t get bored or frustrated with the twists in the story you already know are coming. In this respect the film slips on occasion, but for the most part succeeds.
The successes begin with an excellent opening montage, featuring cameos by “Saturday Night Live” star Andy Samberg and Gluck’s Easy A star Emma Stone. In fact, Stone damn near steals the entire film in just a few minutes of screen time as she shows her passion for John Mayer’s ‘Your Body is a Wonderland’ that had me rolling. Stone has consistently impressed me with her comedic chops and, no offense to Miss Kunis, I probably would have enjoyed this film even more had she been the lead.
Woody Harrelson also supplies his share of laughs as a sexually aggressive, gay GQ sports editor. His jokes do get a bit tiresome (and some may even find him offensive) as the film wears on, as his character only seems to have one gear, but his photo shoot late in the feature provides plenty of laughs.
Timberlake and Kunis, for the most part, also work. I can’t say there is necessarily a lot of “acting” going on here, but both have personalities that are easy to like, creating characters you are rooting for and not against.
The film’s biggest issue is the wedging in of both Jamie and Dylan’s parents. Jamie’s mother, played by Patricia Clarkson, is a scatter-brained mess and Dylan’s father, played by Richard Jenkins, is suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer’s, which creates an obvious dimension of its own. The thing is, each time these characters are included in the story it’s an unnecessary diversion. This film moves well enough on its own, it didn’t need that added dimension to beef it up. It’s a lazy grab at emotion and a clear sign the screenwriters didn’t have enough confidence the audience had enough compassion for the lead characters as they were.
By the time the film gets to its conclusion it has morphed from a raunchy sex-comedy to a rather cute love story, but it’s never so cliche it’s insulting. Though I will say, for a film that starts off as strong and raunchy as this one does, it was disappointing they sort of give up and go so safe in the end. I wonder if it’s a major studio requirement that when it comes to raunchy rom-coms that 50% of the way through there must be a transition to become as formulaic as all the PG-13 versions out there. That seemed to be the case here, but it was fun enough along the way.
