Friends with Benefits

Friends with Benefits follows Justin Timberlake’s Dylan Harper and Mila Kunis’ Jamie Rellis as they embark on a no-strings-attached physical relationship, with the situation inevitably progressing from fun to problematic as emotions and feelings slowly-but-surely enter the equation. There’s little doubt that Friends with Benefits, in its lighthearted first half, moves at a remarkably brisk pace, as filmmaker Will Gluck, working from a screenplay cowritten with Keith Merryman and David A. Newman, has infused the proceedings with a slick and almost sitcom-like feel that’s reflected in virtually all of its attributes. The movie consequently suffers from a lack of authenticity that is, to put it mildly, somewhat troublesome, with the pervasively smug atmosphere heightened by an emphasis on jokes and gags of an eye-rollingly desperate nature (eg an ongoing bit involving pro snowboarder Shaun White falls completely flat). It doesn’t help, either, that both Timberlake and Kunis are charming yet utterly bland in their respective roles, which does, as a result, prevent the viewer from working up any interest in or sympathy for Dylan and Jamie’s relationship woes. (This, of course, ensures that the inevitable fake breakup phase feels even longer and more drawn-out than usual.) The film’s padded-out vibe is compounded by an assortment of oddly incongruous subplots, with the best and most apt example of this everything revolving around Dylan’s Alzheimer’s-afflicted father (Richard Jenkins, in an admittedly stirring performance). And although Gluck and company spend much of the movie’s running time mocking various romcom cliches, Friends with Benefits, which contains virtually every beat and twist associated with the genre, closes with an upbeat and thoroughly romantic stretch that’s strong enough to almost compensate for everything preceding it. (Almost, but not quite.) The end result is an oddly flat romantic comedy that never entirely achieves liftoff, with the movie’s few positive attributes rendered moot by elements of a disappointingly underwhelming variety.

** out of ****