After movies like Good Boys (2019) and bad teacher (2011), one could not expect anything very edifying from Gene Stupnitsky, who has always done in the bawdy comedy about adolescent sexual awakening. This theme, over and over again exploited in American cinema, has nothing wrong in itself. But why does it seem necessary to propagate models of toxic behavior in these films?
Maddie (Jennifer Lawrence), a 30-something with tumultuous relationships, earns her living as an Uber driver, until her car is impounded for not paying Montauk’s exorbitant property taxes. Adamantly refusing to rent or sell her mother’s house to gentrifying tourists, she decides to contact parents who are looking in a Craigslist ad for a woman who can “prank” their son Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman) before his entrance to university. All this in exchange for a car. Which seems cheap to us and announces with great bells the unrealistic nature of the scenario.
There are occasional touching moments in this film and Jennifer Lawrence has a lot to do with it. His young acting partner, Andrew Barth Feldman, is also very good when his character’s awkwardness evaporates. The two actors just don’t have enough interesting material to work with to save the day. The undeniable chemistry between the main performers is the main positive point of the film.
Whether No Hard Feelings had been more focused on the friendship between Maddie and Percy, we could have evacuated many awkward and morally dubious scenes. Maddie’s attempts to seduce the young man, for example, are totally out of place, and the conception of consent seems straight out of a movie 20 years ago. Which, as you can imagine, is not a good thing.
The scenes that are intended to be comical are inspired just as much by regressive comedies of the caliber of The Hangover And Super bad that have marked Hollywood cinema in recent decades. The idea of bringing back this genre to satiate the nostalgia of a generation is not bad, but it would have taken a more interesting execution than that to convince us. Unfortunately, almost everything falls flat, and the discomfort is too great to appreciate the handful of successful gags. Nothing new under the sun.
Comedy
No hard feelings (VF: Without hard feelings)
Gene Stupnitsky
Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Andrew Barth Feldman
1:43 a.m.