No Hard Feelings
June 20th, 2023
MOVIE: NO HARD FEELINGS
STARRING: JENNIFER LAWRENCE, ANDREW BARTH FELDMAN, MATTHEW BRODERICK, NATALIE MORALES
DIRECTED BY: GENE STUPNITSKY
AMovieGuy.com’s RATING: 3 STARS (Out of 4)
At this moment we are starved for comedy. Nothing is funny anymore and when we get a good comedy we need to appreciate it while it lasts. That’s more or less the take I have on No Hard Feelings, the newest venture with Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence, stepping into the realm of raunchy humor. Even when the joke isn’t always landing, what is surprising is that No Hard Feelings has a soft center, in a story that’s not exactly believable, but enjoyable along the way. No Hard Feelings will fill your belly with plenty of laughs and that feels good for the soul.
Maddie Barker (Lawrence) is a 30-year-old, living in Montauk, New York, an Uber driver and failing to get herself out of a state of arrested development. Due to a pile-up of debts, her car is being towed. She tries to convince her one-time boyfriend tow-truck driver to let it slide but a gentleman she’s had a one-night stand with the night before walks outside putting a damper on those hopes. Without a car– her main source of income– the bank will take her family home next. With the help of friends Sara (Natalie Morales) and Jim (Scott MacArthur), in her desperation she finds a Craigslist ad, posted by parents Allison (Laura Benanti) and Laird Becker (Matthew Broderick) offering a car to someone that will take their 19-year old introverted son Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman) on a date. The hope is to open him up and turn him into a confident young man before he attends Princeton, or else he will be socially awkward for the rest of his life. Maddie is desperate and a date for a car is too good to pass up.
From watching the trailer- and once again the trailer gives away too many of the jokes- you might expect No Hard Feelings to be the next Superbad or Step Brothers kind of hit comedy. It’s not quite that, but director/writer Gene Stupnitsky and co-writer John Phillips understand that they have a great actor in the lead, and Lawrence is perfect in her role. She’s tapping into a deeply flawed emotional side she’s displayed in films such as Causeway or Silver Linings Playbook. Her character is sexy and in a state of great desperation. Her scenario pushes the edge of socially acceptable situations but also isn’t afraid to allow her character to be incredibly vulnerable. The character of Maddie is messy and it’s her mess that makes for great comedy.
The counterpart performance from Feldman as the socially awkward Percy is the hidden gem of No Hard Feelings. Fans may wonder how a late-teenage boy could not salivate at the sight of Lawrence but his character is the exact opposite of what Ferris Bueller was. He’s a product of his environment. An only child with wealthy parents providing it all for him. A video gaming and online chatting child in an alternate reality. He’s relatively an incel and watching Lawrence awkwardly break him out of his shell is what I like to call great cringe comedy.
It’s by the midway point where No Hard Feelings may be predictable but as Percy and Maddie’s relationship grows closer on a less intimate level, we begin to see the kind-hearted people they really are. It’s that soft center in these characters that pushes it over the hump; Where even if the laughs are not constant we can appreciate that these characters found one another to shock them both out of their ruts. It’s on a solid level of John Hughes-style movies such as Uncle Buck or Sixteen Candles, and a brand of comedy that desperately needs to make a comeback. If anything is achieved, this proves that Lawrence is a true jack-of-all-trades in acting, and comedy is a great place for her to thrive. No Hard Feelings will have you laughing again and that’s a great feeling.
NO HARD FEELINGS IS IN THEATERS THIS FRIDAY JUNE 23RD, 2023.
3 STARS
Written by: Leo Brady
leo@amovieguy.com
