Review: Friends with Benefits

Friends with Benefits

Dir. Will Gluck

Year: 2011

Aus Rating: MA15+

Running Time: 109mins

In 2010 director Will Gluck made the hilarious teen comedy Easy A, Mila Kunis broke out with psycho-thriller Black Swan, and Justin Timberlake showed real acting skill in The Social Network. Half a year later all three converge on Friends with Benefits, the second film this year (after No Strings Attached) to tell the story of friends who embark on a sexual relationship, only to discover it leads to emotional complications. Unfortunately this mingling of talented people has not produced anything of any worth. The idea of “friends with benefits” is hardly rocket science, yet Gluck and his three co-writers seem intent on being as dim-witted as possible.



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You know what? I could've talked about what was wrong about this terrible movie for a few hundred more words. The whole enterprise is just completely misguided and disingenuous. I mightn't have liked the film if it were nothing more than Kunis and Timberlake meeting cute and spending the next 100 minutes falling in and out of love and then back in again. Instead, the filmmakers went out of their way to mock the stereotypical nature of rom-coms before adhering to every single one of them. And it doesn't even stick to its (to use an American term) "red band" sensibilities. There's nothing particularly funny about hearing someone say curse words in the place of regular language. The lack of actual jokes would've been damaging beyond repair, but the rest of the movie is just as bad.



There got to a point where I was actually spotting all the bloopers and consistency issues the film had. A scene where the bed sheets shift positions between edits? A close-up of Timberlake appearing on the TV news as he's being rescued from the Hollywood Sign? Did they rig a camera to him? Or how about the scene where she says she didn't have time to shave her legs and he says he did have time to shave his legs and yet a close-up of their legs shows hers are shaved and his are not? And while they're not bloopers, I could not stop noticing the ridiculous toga parties these characters obviously thought they were attending whilst in bed. Take a look at this shot for instance:





And, okay, I'll give them leeway on the issue once or twice, but the entire movie is full of them. She routinely pulls the sheets up to her neck during the sex scenes and does anyone every actually do that? Or how about the magic mystery sheet that somehow found its way in the path of some rather important bodily movements that would've made sex impossible. It's like the improbably pool sex scene where Elizabeth Berkley thrusts against Kyle McLachlan's biceps for a new generation. The whole thing was just remarkably foolish. At least Bad Teacher, which I was in the minority of appreciating, had a go-for-broke lead performance from Cameron Diaz and, for a film that featured a plot about breast implants, actually showed breasts. Something's incredibly curious about Mila Kunis if she's willing to sign onto a film like this and yet wants to protect her modesty. Maybe she actually believes that scene where she tries to convince Timberlake's secretary that she's "perfect for Photoshop" and that she's a dog ugly heifer? Hmmm. And really? A man who runs a blog of six million monthly hits and DOESN'T know what a flash mob is? D- but bordering on F because it really is such a fail in so many areas.



You know what else I find amusing? When websites such as Yahoo make such glaringly obvious mistakes as this...





I don't seem to recall Mila Kunis ever being nominated for the Academy Award.

Mila Kunis GLAMOUR UK [Latest!!!]

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Battered and Bruised: 10 Recommendations for Lars von Trier

To celebrate my imminent viewing of Lars von Trier's latest movie, Melancholia, at the Melbourne International Film Festival (my most anticipated of the fest!), I thought it'd be fun to look at the actresses that I'd personally love to see work with the famed Dane. With Kirsten Dunst, an actress many had written off in only her mid-20s, winning Best Actress at Cannes his knack for unique and unexpected casting is yet again in the spotlight. No matter who it is that he casts - a debutant Emily Watson, A-lister Nicole Kidman or musician-turned-actor Bjork - he is bound to get an electric, almost always career best performance out of them.

Angela Bassett
Where in the world is Angela Bassett you ask? Well, unfortunately my geography skills are not what they used to be when hunting down Carmen Sandiego because I fear I'd get lost in seconds trying to figure out where she got off to. Here's hoping she's stalking the Zentropa studios in Denmark, because other than that I just don't wanna know. The way that von Trier put such wordy dialogue into the mouths of his Dogville cast (especially Kidman and Caan in that big climax) makes me salivate for Bassett's e-nun-cee-at-ion and what she could take his highfalutin words.

Viola Davis
An actress as criminally underused as Viola Davis needs a director like Lars von Trier to collectively wake the world up to her immense gifts. She was a punch to the gut in brief cameos in Antoine Fisher and Doubt, so I'd like to imagine she could carry that on through to an entire film. I'd be scared of what von Trier would come up for her - and, perhaps, after the experience of dealing with race in Manderlay he may not want to go back there - but whatever it was I have no doubt Davis could carry it.

Laura Dern
As proven by her work with David Lynch (Wild at Heart, Blue Velvet, INLAND EMPIRE) as well as provocative and daring films by Alexander Payne (Citizen Ruth), Dern has proven that she is at her finest when stretched a director in command of his craft, but who also knows how to play with expectations of story and idea as well as the prettiness of an actor. Her flexible face would be perfect at expressing the range of emotions that von Trier always asks of his leading ladies, while her natural good looks would be like clay in von Trier's hands to bruise and batter at his whim.

Cameron Diaz
I must apologise to Ms Diaz, for you see I recently joked that the Golden Globes' musical/comedy categories were going to be so weak that they might have to nominate Cameron here for her performance in Bad Teacher. I apologise because she would actually deserve it. She hasn't been that committed to a role since - if I am remember correctly - the underrated In Her Shoes. I can only imagine what von Trier would do with this bright-eyed surfer chick, but I would hope he would tap into that talent that sparked in Being John Malkovich and Vanilla Sky. People would most definitely scoff, but there was a time when Diaz looked to be becoming a force. Much like Kirsten Dunst, I am sure she'd surprise us all.

Dakota Fanning
Gosh she was good in The Runaways, wasn't she? Now that Dakota Fanning is grown up it won't actually be gross, weird and just downright icky to see her be put through the physical wringer like many say she was in that Hounddog movie from years back. I'd gladly take Elle Fanning, too, since she is proving herself time and time again lately.

Holly Hunter
The day Lars von Trier announces he is working with Holly Hunter - an actress sadly lost to television and below radar indie projects - is pretty much the day I stop breathing and die. I must, however, be resurrected because there'd be no way in hell I would miss this combination. Just remembering Hunter's performances throughout the 1980s and '90s (even her most recent Oscar-nominated work in 2003, thirteen) and I get chills. Actual chills. I can easily see von Trier sliding Hunter into a role as deep and destructive as Breaking the Waves and I can only hope that Hunter would still have the motivation to dig deep for a role if she was asked.

Lisa Kudrow
This former "Friend" has proven to be one of the most brittle and effecting comediennes in her work with Don Roos (The Opposite of Sex, Happy Ending and, unseen by me, Love and Other Impossible Pursuits), which have been deeply funny and yet emotionally scarred. The Comeback proved that she can indeed be excellent without Roos of her fellow friends to have her back, so just think for a second what sort of warped tragi-comic nightmare von Trier could come up with (people forget he can be a dark humourist) for Lisa Kudrow? Just imagine it, I dare you! Lisa Kudrow in The Idiots. Wow.

Mila Kunis
Much like Kirsten Dunst, Kunis has a background that could make working with a director on von Trier's standing seem quite odd. Star of That '70s Show as well as mainstream properties like Friends with Benefits, its her performance in last year's Black Swan that hinted - but didn't quite fully achieve - at the well of emotions just waiting to be pumped out of her (okay, that sounds gross!) Von Trier could quite easily play with the flirtatious, sexy Mila Kunis just as much as the dark and tortured Mila Kunis and she has briefly flirted with unleashing.

Kristen Stewart
Gosh she was good in The Runaways, wasn't she? Not only would I like to see this because she's proven herself before and after Twilight, but I think I'd also get a bit of a thrill out of Stewart appearing in a film by a filmmaker like von Trier and confusing the hell out of her fans. It's be a riot and she would probably rise to the task, too.

And lastly...

Madonna
Oh you know you wanna see what these two control freaks come up with on his Danish backlot! Don't even try to deny it.

Australians Do It Dirtier

Take a look at these two posters for upcoming friends-with-benefits comedy, er, Friends with Benefits. One is the American poster and the other is the Australian poster. It's quite obvious which is which, isn't it?


I continue to find America's relationship with sex so bizarre. Movies with titles like Friends with Benefits or Zack and Miri Make a Porno, which are obviously about sex, aren't allowed to advertise that fact on their poster and yet movies like Saw are allowed to feature dismembered, sawed off limbs? Hmm. Sure, Zack and Miri's use of a visual gag (oh har dee har har) about oral sex was perhaps a bit too risque, but the American poster for Friends with Benefits on the left is so puritanical. It's not like adults aren't going to know what the deal is with a film called Friends with Benefits - and those who are offended by that title would probably be offended by anything - which means somebody cried "won't somebody think of the children!" and they had to send out this poster instead. It's going to be awkward to parents and their children no matter they ask about: "what does benefits mean?" or "why is he pointing at her like that?" if they ask anything at all, so I guess I don't quite see the problem.

On a completely separate issue, it's annoying that Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis were obviously photographed separately and grafted together with errant limbs attached to each of them. And you can tell they're the same photo of each by simply looking at them, and yet the rest of their bodies are doing entirely different poses. You're trying to sell these two as a sexy pair who find each other sexy so that you want to see them have sex (isn't that the whole point of this movie?) and yet in both posters they look as steamy as a cold dinner.

These two, as evidenced by the trailer (below), are in a lot of scenes together. Surely they could've taken a few photographs for a movie poster in between takes, right? Perhaps I'm just deluding myself into imagining scenarios in which famous movie couples somehow stumble across a poster that is as iconic and memorable as this improvised poster for Desperately Seeking Susan featuring Madonna and Rosanna Arquette (click the link if you don't remember what I'm talking about). So many missed opportunities there. Although, at least they didn't attempt it and still bollocks it up like No Strings Attached (NATALIE PORTMAN'S MAGIC DISAPPEARING WASTE!!!AAAGGH!!)

*sigh*