No Strings Attached (2011)
Directed by Ivan Reitman
Emma is a busy doctor who sets up a seemingly perfect arrangement when she offers her best friend Adam a relationship with one rule: No strings attached. But when a fling becomes a thing, can sex friends stay best friends?
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What critics say influenced No Strings Attached
Far from the actress’s “Norbit” (which many blame for derailing Eddie Murphy’s “Dreamgirls” Oscar hopes), the film offers a rare showcase for her comic gifts, molding Emma out of slapstick comedy, fast-paced dialogue and an undercurrent of sincere vulnerability.
There’s been chatter that No Strings Attached might be Portman’s Norbit, a reference to the fact that Eddie Murphy’s critically reviled comedy opened when he was the Oscar frontrunner for his supporting turn in Dreamgirls (Little Miss Sunshine’s Alan Arkin ended up taking home the award).
The answer provided here – one of many reasons why this film is not as "daring" as it pretends – is a resounding "no." (This is no junior-division " Last Tango in Paris .")
Do it right and you end up with Last Tango in Paris or, on the comedic side, The 40 Year-Old Virgin.
No Strings Attached could have been fascinating had it made an honest attempt at exploring whether such a union could really work — think of it as a Last Tango in Paris for the Internet generation, with cell phones instead of butter as the story’s chief accessory.
Directed with reclaimed exuberance by Ivan Reitman (2006's " My Super Ex-Girlfriend "), who hasn't made something this good in nearly twenty years, the film, like 2010's underappreciated " Going the Distance ," is an all-too-rare R-rated romantic comedy that uses its rating not as an excuse to be needlessly raunchy, but instead to simply be honest and forthright about its characters and subject matter.
Anyone who was amused by Drew Barrymoreâs recent Going the Distance will find some similar giggles here.
There’s been chatter that No Strings Attached might be Portman’s Norbit, a reference to the fact that Eddie Murphy’s critically reviled comedy opened when he was the Oscar frontrunner for his supporting turn in Dreamgirls (Little Miss Sunshine’s Alan Arkin ended up taking home the award).
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Certainly, No Strings Attached is unusual within the current market in that it gives a female slant on the usual sex comedy fare, something that the failure of 2002's The Sweetest Thing seemed guaranteed to prevent from ever occurring again.
Interestingly, this is her first formulaic romantic comedy ( Garden State doesn't count - that had a "quirky, indie" vibe); it's an oddity for a young, attractive actress to have been in the business for 17 years before appearing in one of these.
However just enough are saved by sparks of chemistry between Kutcher and Portman, with Kutcher raising his game (no tawdry pun intended) and Portman well able to water down her Garden State quirkiness.
Unfortunately the director is Ivan Reitman, who's never made a more emotionally complex film than Meatballs (1979).
Probably Ivan Reitman, the Canadian hack who lowered the bar for brain-dead comedy by directing trash like Meatballs, Kindergarten Cop and Cannibal Girls.
What's even more astonishing than the casting is the fact that veteran director Ivan Reitman (Dave, Twins, Ghostbusters, Stripes, Meatballs) has lost all sense of comic pacing.
The film's director is the veteran Ivan Reitman and, while he's in his mid-60s, he hasn't entirely tossed away the frat-house sensibility that gave us such sophisticated sparklers as Meatballs and Stripes.
No Strings Attached, along with the 2009 indie Friends (With Benefits), the upcoming Justin Timberlake-Mila Kunis Friends with Benefits and the recent, tragedy-tinged Love and Other Drugs , all take the question posed by When Harry Met Sally… one further.
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Otherwise, the most intriguing aspect of this calculated mix of raunch and adorability lies in the rivalry between Kutcher and his dad (Kevin Kline), surely some kind of submerged metaphor about Ivan Reitman crossing into his son Jason�s slick Up in the Air turf.
Mr. Reitman is not his son Jason (“Up in the Air,” “Juno”).
Reitman, a veteran of hit comedies (and father of Jason, who directed Up in the Air), knows how to pace and edit around jokes for maximum comic effect, and the script is unusually sharp for the rom-com genre, stuffed with memorable lines and situations — most of them gleefully R-rated — that give the actors something to do other than riff and flail around in cute fashion.
Do not confuse him with Jason Reitman, who made the refreshing Up in the Air.
Right now, “No Strings Attached” director Ivan Reitman (“Ghostbusters”) probably hopes to emulate his son Jason’s recent success (“Juno,” “Up in the Air”), and Oscar favorite Portman (“Black Swan”) hopes not to damage her rising star with a stinker.
That's about the best analogy that I can make about No Strings Attached as helmed by Ivan Reitman, whose skills may have dipped over the years but who is still the director of Ghostbusters, Dave, Twins, Kindergarten Cop and Stripes.
What's even more astonishing than the casting is the fact that veteran director Ivan Reitman (Dave, Twins, Ghostbusters, Stripes, Meatballs) has lost all sense of comic pacing.
The film's director is the veteran Ivan Reitman and, while he's in his mid-60s, he hasn't entirely tossed away the frat-house sensibility that gave us such sophisticated sparklers as Meatballs and Stripes.
That is the carnal proposition posed by No Strings Attached, a romantic comedy in reverse from the legendary Ivan Reitman, director of such screen classics as Stripes (1981) Ghostbusters (1984) and Twins (1988).