Do you all remember going to the movie theater to see a comedy? I think I’ve said this before because there are so few comedies that I get to see in theaters, especially good ones that don’t feel like they were made for streaming, and the powers that be just decided they’d take a chance on a theater release. For a while now, we get blips like The Blackening (Good), About My Father (Bad), or whatever Marvel movie or animated film. Gone are the days of the Apatow movies running the summer or even Kevin Hart’s winter dominance. We won’t even talk about the 80s and 90s. Now with the Jennifer Lawrence-led No Hard Feelings, we have another shot at a star-led R-rated comedy. JLaw plays Maddie Barker, a young woman in her early 30s who makes money as an Uber driver but has serious financial issues. Once her car is repossessed, she answers an online posting from two parents worried about their son’s life a bit too much. See Percy, played by Andrew Barth Feldman, is a 19-year-old young man who doesn’t seem to be as into dating, girls, sex, and having fun as much as his parents would like. So they want to hire Maddie to seduce and have sex with their son, and in return, she gets a car. This setup is pretty wild, but now we have Maddie spending a large portion of the movie flirting and trying to get Percy to have sex with her, and he’s not totally into it.
Even though the film has a pretty throwback, to say the least premise, it does feel like one of the first openly millennial/ Gen Z generational divide. It’s Maddie and her friends with all their financial troubles and money worries, having to do very sketchy things just to survive. We have these kids with their over-hovering parents – even more so than I’d say of the ones millennials had that leads to different ideas of these Zs of having about intimacy, relationships, and sex. It does lead to some hilarious situations, as Percy’s leeriness of doing things does prove to be correct, as Maddie is essentially going about it all the wrong way for the wrong reasons. Don’t get it twisted this joint is funny; they go in on the jokes and the slapstick heavy in this. They don’t show all the good jokes in the trailers and commercials. The combination of Maddie’s more assured mature nature with Percy’s awkward, more softboi apprehension makes for a great comedic pairing.
No Hard Feelings also has some funny supporting performances by Matthew Broderick as Percy’s father, Laird, who’s a pretty trash person also bounces well off of Laura Benanti as his wife, Allison, who is very much the super overprotective of what Percy does and experiences are. They work enough in the film and don’t overstay their welcome. Maddie’s friends Jim and Sarah, played by Scott MacArthur and Natalie Morales, are a married couple that clearly has it more together than Maddie yet cares for her and has similar life problems – not affording anything. That is what stood out to me the most, the class issues going around in the background and what a lack of money will force you into doing, even if it’s shown in a very extreme way. All that and Jennifer Lawerence can hit a mean suplex, folks, get her in the ring Triple H! No Hard Feelings is a good and funny time to spend a few hours in the summer.
Score: B+
