NO HARD FEELINGS - Mark Reviews Movies

No Hard Feelings, Sony Pictures Entertainment

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Review by Mark Dujsik | June 22, 2023

No Hard Feelings begins with a—let's generously call her—flawed protagonist and a creepy but genuinely amusing premise. That's more than enough for a solid comedy, which co-writer/director Gene Stupnitsky's movie is at the start, but then, something shifts in this story and for these characters. The move means we get to watch an admittedly sweet sort-of romance/unlikely friendship develop, but that also means it feels as if the filmmakers go out of their way to apologize for what was so funny about this material in the first place.

Part of it is that there's nothing particularly unique about the main character. She's Maddie, who's in her early 30s, lives in the same house in the same town where she has spent the whole of her life, and has gotten into some financial trouble because her work as a ride-share driver and bartender isn't quite making ends meet.

Maddie is brash and openly opinionated, and because the character is played by Jennifer Lawrence, she's also inherently endearing in those qualities. Lawrence doesn't make Maddie unnecessarily cruel or maliciously manipulative, even if she can be cruel and manipulative under certain circumstances. There's always a reason for those reactions, and given just how much Maddie has going against her at the moment, we pretty much understand why she might take that out on friends who know she doesn't mean it and wealthy strangers who don't care that she does.

This character fits neatly into the line of recent comic women antiheroes, who are unapologetic in their behavior and attitude—a trend that's refreshing, if only because people like this exist in the world regardless of gender, even if the movies only seemed to acknowledge and sympathize with men who fit that category for a long time. As it turns out, Lawrence is a gifted comedic actor, mostly because she's not playing for or at the jokes, only allowing the character to be who she is and reacting to the plot's shenanigans as such.

The gags are pretty good, too, if only for the stretch of the first two acts when Stupnitsky and John Phillips' screenplay focuses on them. We meet Maddie as her car is about to seized by the local government for failure to pay property taxes. The tow truck driver, by the way, just happens to be an ex-fling (played by Ebon Moss Bachrach), who's under the false impression that he's more of an ex-boyfriend.

The movie's first funny bit has Maddie trying to woo this guy in order for him to leave her car alone, since it's a major source of her income, only to be undermined by the appearance of a new fling from her house. The deadpan tone and timing Lawrence has when lying about the new guy being a relative—and re-adjusting the lie when he grabs her in a most un-familial way—make it clear why she's so funny in the role.

As for the plot's central conceit, it involves Maddie discovering an online ad, posted by the parents of a socially awkward, lonely 19-year-old young man. Laird (Matthew Broderick) and Allison (Laura Benanti) are afraid their son Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman) won't be equipped to handle college life when he heads off to an Ivy League school at the end of the summer. Their plan is to enlist the aid of a willing young woman to "date" Percy and get him out of his shell, in exchange for a lightly used car. It's such an awful, devious, and shortsighted plan that of course Maddie is the right and, apparently, only woman for the job.

The setup here is funny for a simple reason: Maddie is determined to have sex with young man to get what she wants, but Percy is so shy, naïve, and considerate that his every word, mood, and action intentionally or accidentally block her goal. Feldman is quite funny here, too, primarily because he doesn't play Percy as an embarrassing joke but as a young guy who's simply embarrassed by how he perceives himself. If we like Maddie in spite of her actions, it's easy to like Percy because he's so stuck in a state of inaction.

In addition to the two central performances, there are some smartly arranged gag sequences here, such as Maddie orchestrating a meet-cute with Percy, only for the little details to give the young man an impression that this stranger has ill intentions for him, and skinny-dipping scene that results in a nude brawl on the beach with some pranksters. That element of the movie's comedy runs out of steam quickly, but because the filmmakers and the two actors understand these characters so well, it's still consistently amusing to watch them get closer to each other, only for their distinct personalities to result in an impasse.

These two grow over the course of these interactions, obviously, with Percy becoming more confident, while Maddie figures out how much of her behavior stems from despising but holding out hope for her absent father. Eventually, No Hard Feelings becomes bogged down by trying to explain, justify, and correct Maddie's personality, while also making sure there's some genuine connection between the main characters. In one way, the shift is appreciated, but on a fundamental level, it detracts a bit too much from what makes the story and relationship funny.

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