Despite her mostly intense characters on screen, her off-screen goofiness clues us into her funny side and Jennifer Lawrence lets that funny side rip in the raunchy sex comedy No Hard Feelings. But despite JLaw hitting all the right notes, and having a worthy ally in co-star Andrew Barth Feldman, the Gene Stupnitsky-directed film neither serves up any laugh-out-loud moments nor emotionally touching ones.
The premise is a bit icky, if seen through the lens of how problematic sexual grooming can be, but if we can put that aside, it had the potential for gaining the cult status of some of the sex comedies of yore.
Maddie Barker (Jennifer Lawrence) is a down-on-luck Montauk resident who struggles to keep a roof over her head driving an Uber and bartending on the side. The idyllic summer tourist spot is just hotting up when her assets are seized, including her car, for the delay of property taxes on the house her mother left her.
Maddie, who was the result of a summer fling and abandoned by the wealthy vacationing sperm donor, has intense hatred for the rich guys who buy property in Montauk pushing up property prices and pushing out locals. So when a Craigslist ad offers a Buick Regal in exchange for “dating”, and yes it is “dating” dating a 19-year-old to bring him out of his shell before he goes to Princeton, Maddie is urged by her friends Sarah (Natalie Morales) and Jim (Scott MacArthur) — the funniest characters of the film — to “use them like they use us”.
Helicopter parents Laird (Matthew Broderick) and Allison (Laura Benanti) may have given her a free rein in how she wants to bring their son Percy (Feldman) out of his shell but Maddie finds it far from easy to tempt the shy and introverted young man with her aggressive sexuality, causing to get her maced, thrown into the sea with her butt on fire and being turned down in every possible way.
JLaw is a phenomenon when it comes to physical comedy, whether she is trying to climb stairs with rollerblades on bringing down a shelf after being punched in the throat or giving young kids a beat down by the beach in her birthday suit (not that we get to see it in India). She is great when she is being crass and foul-mouthed and not at all appropriate. But she can’t do much to save a film which doesn’t commit to anything — whether it is going all out for sexual jokes or in trying to highlight class differences or comment on helicopter parenting or how sex has become a little too taboo today.
Just like the comedic sequences, the emotional moments between JLaw and Feldman also feel genuine but it feels like watching an altogether different film. In the end, No Hard Feelings plays it too safe to match up to the coming-of-age sex comedies like American Pie and becomes instantly forgettable.
No Hard Feelings is worth a watch for Lawrence alone, but not for much else.
