Benefits with Friends

I really didn't expect to like "Friends with Benefits", primarily because going into it I feared it would follow all the cinematic cliches in the book for Rom-Coms. Then, once it started, I thought that there might be some hope yet...

Justin Timblerlake and Mila Kunis are friends who decide to see if they can have a sexual relationship without it getting in the way of their friendship. Things get complicated, feelings get involved, blah, blah, blah.

The film starts strongly (with Andy Samberg and Emma Stone making neat little cameos dumping Kunis and Timberlake) and for perhaps the first hour, there was lots of laughs and I thought that the film might do something original and defy convention. At one point Kunis is screaming at a Katherine Hiegl poster, berating it for lying to her about true love. And if the whole film had kept that tone, it would definitely have been edgier and may even have been exceptional.

But this is Hollywood, so of course it then needed to fall in line with rom-com conventions. And once that started happening the film got boring, the laughter stopped and I got sorely disappointed.

Good start, poor end.

She taught a bad, bad thing

After the startling mediocrity of Green Lantern, I dragged myself to see Bad Teacher, thinking a comedy might lift my spirits. Instead it completed a double bill of so-so movies.

Maybe I’m being too harsh. It was an OK comedy that had a few laughs. It’s nice to see Cameron Diaz doing full-on comedy again – she’s good at it and I think she’s a great example to give stupid sexist idiots who say that women can’t be funny.

She had a great supporting cast around her. Jason Segal is solid as always, and I think may be the person doing the best off the back of How I Met Your Mother (although Cobie Smulders is going to be in The Avengers so let’s wait and see). Phyllis Smith and Eric Stonestreet (from The US Office and Modern Family, respectively) have small but entertaining parts and Justin Timberlake (who has never wowed me in serious roles) is good as the dorky object of Diaz’s affection. It’s weird that the international sex-symbol seems his most comfortably playing a loser, but perhaps hanging around with Andy Samberg has honed his comedy skills.

The real breakout star in this is Lucy Punch, a British actress who I’ve only really seen before in Hot Fuzz (briefly) and ill-fated American sitcom The Class. She is hilarious and has a real future in comedy. Her character (although technically the antagonist to Diaz’s antihero) is the one I ended up routing for, and I felt quite sorry for her by the end – perhaps the uncomfortable feeling of her being unnecessarily punished is one of the reasons I didn’t enjoy the film more.

Ultimately it’s just Bad Santa, but not quite as good.