They both love each other and respect each other?
For me, as a woman, it was satisfying and heart-warming to finally watch a rom-com that was sympathetic to women and the way we view relationships, which is not how 80 percent of rom-coms like to think we do – and yes, plenty of female screenwriters have been guilty of perpetuating myths and made-up rules about women and love (e.g. you can only have career success or a man to love). Still, it was great to see a film that was fun, funny, and feminist. Emma gets to stay a d isn’t a man-child that Emma has to babysit for the rest of her life? Hurrah! Cheers!
I do have my critiques of the film, though. Sometimes I felt that NO STRINGS ATTACHED pulled a few of its punches, stopping just short of being the movie it could be in the first half. But at some point after, the film went for it and took me along for the ride. There also could have been a bit more Cary Elwes (but I hold that opinion about every movie he’s in) as the respected doctor at Emma’s hospital, and more of Kaling and Emma’s other roommate, Guy (Guy Branum). While not a perfect film, and not the best romantic comedy in history, NO STRINGS ATTACHED is a change of pace that reminds me the genre is anything but dead or cliche past the point of return.
Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher have only each other, one family member, three best friends and one clearly wrong love interest each. Photo by DW StudiosN
Review: No Strings Attached Back to video
People in movies lead such uncomplicated lives. I’m not referring to the premise of this romantic comedy, in which two people decide to have sex without the messiness of a relationship, but rather the strangely bare-bones aspects of the rest of their social networks.
Emma (Natalie Portman) is a doctor whose three best friends also happen to be her co-workers and roommates. (Throw in a charming doorman or grumpy landlord and she’d be living in a ’70s sitcom.) Adam (Ashton Kutcher) is an assistant on a Glee-type TV show; his three best (only?) friends are an old schoolmate and the owner and head waitress at his favourite bar.
Each character has one alternative love interest who is so clearly wrong for him/her that an attempted kiss by one leads to a collision of foreheads. Each also has one family member of note. Emma’s is her sister, played by Olivia Thirlby.
Then there’s Adam’s father (Kevin Kline), a pot-smoking TV star who reveals in an early scene that he’s dating Adam’s ex-girlfriend. (Kutcher must have felt right at home in this inter-generational love triangle.)
Director Ivan Reitman, who made Meatballs and Ghostbusters (and, in this century, Evolution and My Super Ex-Girlfriend), frames the story as a kind of Bizarro When Harry Met Sally . Can men and women just have sex, or does the friendship part always get in the way?
It’s a clever conceit, but without the scriptwriting panache of a Nora Ephron, it feels a bit limp. Having a line like, “You’re going to fall in love with me,” doesn’t help matters, either. It’s a bit like telling Norman Bates: “You’re going to kill someone one of these days.”
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One possible fix might have been to speed things up. At 108 minutes, No Strings shuffles when it should spring.
(One more comparison: When Harry Met Sally . clocked in at 95 minutes.) Even the standard escort in Santa Maria date montage goes on forever, including what feels like an entire game of minigolf.
