‘No Hard Feelings’ Review: Jennifer Lawrence Goes All in on Unapologetic Raunchy Comedy That Feels Like a Breath of Fresh Air
After populating the box office during the 2000s, and to a lesser degree during the subsequent decade, the studio comedy is a genre almost extinguished by now, after merging with other revenue-driving films populated by superheroes for the most part. After all, what was the last true comedy that we saw in the past few years? There are satires like The Menu or Triangle of Sadness that come to mind, but is there anything more recent than The King of Staten Island that adhered to the path set by movies like Trainwreck or even Superbad? Worry not, because No Hard Feelings is here to the rescue.
While Gene Stupnitsky certainly doesn’t reinvent the wheel with this movie, much like Asteroid City (also very funny but in its own quirky way), No Hard Feelings feels extremely fresh, even if it follows the same, safe structure we’ve seen in so many other films before it. What it does bring to the table, however, is some raunchy humor we very much need in this day and age. It’s the film’s ability to understand the society it’s living in and also its way of never taking itself seriously that make it memorable. Also, having an unhinged Jennifer Lawrence never hurts, even if the over-the-top way she approached the second act was a bit distracting.
Lawrence stars as Maddie, a 32-year-old bartender and seasonal Uber driver in Montauk, a Long Island village that attracts the wealthy Manhattan elite during the summer. Driving people around is her main source of income during those busy months, so after her car gets towed away, she finds herself in deep financial trouble, scrapping for ways not to sell her childhood house in which she’s been living since she was born. That’s when she finds an ad in which two parents are looking for someone to date their 19-year-old introvert kid (Andrew Barth Feldman) so that he can grow into a man before he goes to college in the fall. In return, they offer the car Maddie desperately needs.
Maddie (Jennifer Lawrence) in Columbia Pictures’ NO HARD FEELINGS. Photo By: Macall Polay. Courtesy of Sony Pictures.
That sets up a not-exactly-romantic comedy in which age-related dynamics in today’s society are showcased to great effect. If nothing else, No Hard Feelings excels at portraying how different age groups approach life and each other. The script understands that for people between 18 and 24, a difference in age of one year feels like a decade, and that works both ways. This is not common to see in stories about young adults, mostly because the people behind them are quite distant from what it feels like to be 19. What they do understand is that there are several types of 32-year-olds: those that are already setting up a life, looking to have children and buying a house, and those who still feel like they are 27 and believe they can pretend to be so until life gets in the way.
Going into No Hard Feelings, the studio told us to expect an unapologetic comedy, one that would rely on awkward humor and Matthew Broderick playing Ferris Bueller’s worst nightmare. What I didn’t expect was to see an interesting character study about two people coming from very different backgrounds and understanding each other in the end. One of them grew up with a dysfunctional family and has been on her own for longer than she should have; the other grew up in a highly-protective environment that prevented him from flourishing outside of his own bedroom.
Maddie (Jennifer Lawrence) and Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman) in Columbia Pictures’ NO HARD
FEELINGS. Photo By: Macall Polay. Courtesy of Sony Pictures.
Lawrence approaches the role head-first, for better and worse, as we realize throughout the film. There are sentimental moments that she approaches with the sweetness they require, but the script also calls for a “maneater” (the song by that name is used as an on-your-face recurring theme throughout the film), someone who is not thinking twice about what she’s doing and how that is affecting everyone around her. She has been hired to have sex with young Percy, and that’s all she now cares about. Her completely unrealistic approach to the situation is partially (and thankfully) leveled up by Barth Feldman’s performance, who is as intimidated as he is aroused by that situation. And that is probably how any 19-year-old introvert virgin would feel in that situation.
In another world, No Hard Feelings could have been a deep comedy about financial inequalities in the US and how that is causing important differences in society that need to be addressed before people in need are almost forced to go back to slavery. And in another world, I would have probably asked the movie to be a bit deeper and perhaps even more daring than it already is (it’s quite relentless in its comedic approach but its commentary on real-world issues is a bit uneven.) However, I appreciated what Stupnitsky was going for, and I can gladly say I was able to escape my own skin for 100 minutes, which is what we go to the movies for, after all.
No Hard Feelings is currently in theaters in most markets.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
