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Friends with Benefits (***)

Michael Cox reviews the new film starring Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis.

Plotline

Two friends, a website editor and an executive head-hunter, decide to add sex to their friendship but agree to not confuse everything with emotions.

Review

The biggest surprise with Friends with Benefits is how well the film works—for the first half at least. Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis make a solid double-act: they’re funny, glamorous and work well with, and against, each other. There are some very funny set-ups and payoffs, and the sarcasm levelled at Hollywood romantic-comedies is knowing and hits true.

Which is why the second half is so frustrating. Rather than really testing its premise, the film falls into every trap and cliché it worked so hard to ridicule. Of course it does this knowingly, but it’s rather disappointing seeing the obvious play out.

At least there are some great supporting performances. Patricia Clarkson steals every scene she’s in as Kunis’ hippie mother, and the great Richard Jenkins gives wise fatherly advice and supplies the usual rom-com pathos with aplomb. Some might not like Woody Harrelson’s flamboyant sports editor, but for me he was the funniest thing in the film.

Friends with Benefits is amusing, but for a film that says it wants to be the antithesis to the average rom-com, what it actually becomes is an obvious example of one.

Bottom Line

Rescued by a funny first half and a great supporting cast, Friends with Benefits is for audiences looking for a safe and brainless distraction.

Tags: cinema

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