Film Review: No Strings Attached

In another sad statement about how low the film industry has sunk in this past month, a romantic-comedy starring Ashton Kutcher turns out to be the best of the year thus far. That's not to say that I loved No Strings Attached, because there's only so far adoration can go for a merely good film. If you haven't already heard the story, then you're lurking in a globe of films like Avatar. Ashton Kutcher plays an up-and-coming writer on a Glee ripoff show, and Natalie Portman plays a resident at the local hospital. The two have come in contact three times in the past, and on the fourth time, they have sex. From there on, they use each other as Fuckbuddies, which is what the film was called before all the naming rights situation with Friends with Benefits.

Right from the beginning, you should know that this isn't going to take any turns that you don't really expect. It's not going to break the shell between clean-cut comedy to Apatow emulating raunch-fest. It's simply an entertaining, if still mildly cliched, rom-com. You shouldn't really be expecting much more, or else you deserve to be disappointed. The one thing exasperating this from other films like it is Portman's depiction of Emma. Everything else in the film ranges from one-dimensional to two-dimensional, but Emma is a fully formed and actively complex character.

Adam is the exact sort of good-hearted idiot that you'd expect Ashton Kutcher to play, but Emma has a secret emotion behind her eyes. She's emotionally closed off to a legitimately emotional relationship, so she doesn't really understand what the history between her and Adam means. She's not an idiot, but there's both loneliness and fear of commitment that make up her defining characteristics. It's as good a follow-up performance to Black Swan as Portman could've given. She's got a long palette between now and June, so if she manages mild successes like this consistently, then I'll be contented.

Ashton Kutcher is still an awful actor, and I can only wonder if somebody else could've taken the role he received. In all seriousness, Paul Rudd can't be in enough movies these days. Chris "Ludacris" Bridges is the best of Kutcher's two sidekicks, and he's the one you'll remember well past the end. Greta Gerwig is my favorite supporting actress of the film, and it wonderfully complements the main arc. Olivia Thirlby had a surprise appearance that I didn't anticipate in the least, and it made the experience so much more fulfilling. The real gem is Portman, and Kutcher is the wall that is keeping No Strings Attached from reaching B status.

B-