Friends With Benefits (2011)

Perhaps it says something about the state of the modern romantic comedy that it feels apt to praise Will Gluck’s Friends With Benefits because it is tolerable. Instead of being a string of unfunny, lifeless clichés, it instead approaches its material with a knowing wink. What it doesn’t realize is that the occasional use of meta-commentary doesn’t inherently excuse the fact the premise you’re dealing with is so painfully conventional. Here is a film where any scene between the two leads is often engaging and refreshingly honest, but the world—and story—around them feels unforgivably contrived. Worse yet, it’s infinitely less funny. Friends With Benefits wants so badly to be a response to the contrived Hollywood romantic comedy, but just because the clichés are in a more self-aware package doesn’t mean it’s more interesting.

Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake star as two exceptionally attractive young professionals who live in New York City. Both have just gotten out of two (presumably) long relationships, and they aren’t looking to start another one right now. As an alternative, they come up with the idea to be more than friends but not quite an official couple… perhaps there is a phrase to describe this arrangement, but it is not coming to mind. Essentially, they have sex with each other, but they want to skip all the icky romantic parts. They just meet up, hop into bed, and move on with their days. Surely no complications will arise!

This would seem to be a simple enough story, but Gluck and the screenwriters feel that the solution to the standard rom-com plot at the center is to continue adding more around it. As a result, Friends With Benefits ends up with more subplots and side adventures than the average season of television. Some of these work—like Kunis’ brief stint with a new boyfriend—but too often they seem to fly in from a completely different movie. Most jarring is the addition of the terrific character actor Richard Jenkins, who plays the aging father of Timberlake’s character. Jenkins seems to be in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, and Timberlake is starting to worry about the day when his father won’t recognize his own family. Jenkins’ performance is kind of terrific, but holy cow does this plot come flying in from another galaxy. In one scene, we’re supposed to be laughing at the hijinks of Kunis and Timberlake. In the next, we’re asked to be emotionally invested in Jenkins’ battle against his own mortality. It’s never inherently wrong to mix comedy and drama, but it’s a downright sin to do it as inelegantly as this.

What saves this film is the considerable chemistry of Timberlake and Kunis, and Friends With Benefits might have been a better film had it become a My Dinner With Andre-esque journey through a single night between the two. Whenever they are talking—or not talking, if you know what I mean (nudge, nudge)—the film is a watchable look at two people who have chosen to pursue an unconventional relationship. What’s problematic is that even this portion of the film completely derails in the final act. Toward the climax, Friends With Benefits wants to be the Scream of romantic comedy movies; going through the motions of its genre while simultaneously commenting on them. The difference is that Scream actually worked as a horror movie, and Friends With Benefits doesn’t work nearly as well once it kicks into to rom-com autopilot.

Gluck has the potential to be a really good comedy director—as was proved by last year’s Easy A—but Friends With Benefits (try as it might) is unable to break free from the tyranny of its own genre. For example, it prominently features a film-within-the-film, which stars Jason Segel and Rashida Jones. This fake romantic comedy is so over-the-top and cheesy that the universe of Friends With Benefits is supposed to look more real as a contrast. Unfortunately, this little trick backfires. The fake movie actually seems like a far funnier parody of the romantic comedy genre than the “real” world around it. In fact, most of Friends With Benefits seems too Hollywood to be believed. All of the characters are way too beautiful, the scenery more so, and it features one of those gay best friends (Woody Harrelson) that spends most of his time reminding everybody in earshot that he is, in fact, gay. In graphic detail.

The best thing that can be said about Friends With Benefits is that doesn’t play it safe, and that in itself is slightly refreshing. The two protagonists are occasionally nude—but never graphically so—and the language actually earns the R-rating (unlike this year’s first friend-with-benefits comedy No Strings Attached). Also, it once and for all proves that Timberlake is a more-than-competent leading man, and a funny one at that. Besides these occasional moments of humor and honesty, Friends With Benefits devolves into a film that’s only half as clever as it thinks it is. It wants to be the romantic comedy you’ve been waiting for, but it ends up being just another romantic comedy. Albeit a slightly more watchable one.

GRADE: C+

Friends With Benefits opens everywhere on July 22.