Can you regularly have sex with someone, remain friends, and not fall in love?
That’s the question No Strings Attached poses. And while it’s not necessarily a bad question for a romantic comedy to dangle in front on us, I’m not sure if I want Ashton Kutcher giving me the answer.
As dopey as the film in which he appears, which I’m certain is a pre-requisite for Kutcher by now, the appearance of Mr. Demi Moore really isn’t a shocker; a movie like this is prime stomping grounds for a dude of his, er, calibre.
But Natalie Portman? Hey, not every script can be The Black Swan, huh?
Here’s the crazy thing; this couple actually has decent on-screen chemistry. Take away the jumbo size pile of genitalia jokes and you’d have a pretty classy date flick here, certainly better than most on the rom-com assembly line. Unfortunately, two things happen:
#1) It hits that darn wall of predictability, and #2) Did I mention all those genitalia jokes?
Kutcher and Portman play Adam and Emma, childhood pals who bump into each other sporadically as they grow (think When Harry Meets Sally, only start the clock a few years earlier).
As per the rules of tales like this, they’re opposites. She’s a medical students, he’s a TV producer. She’s smart, he’s not. But if there’s one thing they have in common, it’s that they both enjoy a round or two of the horizontal mambo. So they decide to make it a frequent occurrence with, as the title clearly states, no strings attached.
There are some solid cameo performances, including Kevin Kline as Kutcher’s famous actor father, a pot-smoking womanizer, and Greta Gerwig as a hilarious medical resident/sounding board for buddy Portman.
No Strings Attached isn’t great. Director Ivan Reitman has certainly seen better days, pretty much all of them during the 1980s, but his film does exceed expectations.
Now, is that because an Oscar contender is part of it? Yeah. Any further questions?
The feature is currently playing at Galaxy Cinemas in Vernon.
