Friends With Benefits (2011) [Blu-ray]
Comedy | Romance

Tagline: I wish my life was a movie sometimes.

Dylan (Justin Timberlake) is done with relationships. Jamie (Mila Kunis) decides to stop buying into the Hollywood clichés of true love. When the two become friends they decide to try something new and take advantage of their mutual attraction - but without any emotional attachment. Physical pleasure without the entanglements. Sounds easy enough for two logical adults, right? Not so much. They soon realize romantic comedy stereotypes might exist for a reason.

Storyline: Jamie (Mila Kunis) is a New York head-hunter trying to sign Los Angeles-based Dylan (Justin Timberlake) for her client. When he takes the job and makes the move, they quickly become friends. Their friendship turns into a friendship with benefits, but with Jamie's emotionally damaged past and Dylan's history of being emotionally unavailable, they have to try to not fall for each other the way Hollywood romantic comedies dictate. Written by napierslogs

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Martin Liebman, November 13, 2011 -- Friends with Benefits is something of a semi-self-aware Romantic Comedy that attempts to differentiate between the realities of life outside the movie theater and the themes and plot elements that define the typical escapist feel-good Romantic Comedy genre picture. Does love always play out as it does in the movies, where two characters meet, slowly fall for one another, but arrive to some sort of impassable obstacle, only to fall back in love and live happily ever after, sharing the "big kiss" in the perfect setting and in conjunction with the perfect romantic melody? Or is life and love far more complicated than that, defined not by a whimsically magical script, storybook locations, perfect makeup, appropriate costumes, and just the right song playing at just the right time to perfectly reinforce every overt emotion in the movie but instead built around inescapable truths about the complexities of human relationships, characteristics, past experiences, and personal choices, not to mention sometimes questionable dress and hygiene and most certainly an absence of theme music to help in the identification of a special moment? About the only thing that fact and fiction seem to have in common when it comes to this "crazy little thing called love" is the influence and unpredictability of fate, which itself might very well be history's most successful matchmaker, anyway. Friends with Benefits expertly traverses the tricky business of love, and just maybe, shows that life could use a little more of that magical cinematic whimsy, while the typical Romantic Comedy might benefit from a little more spice and honest slice-of-life realism.

Dylan (Justin Timberlake) is the head honcho at an up-and-coming website. His natural editorial strengths have made him the target of GQ magazine. The prestigious publication is prepared to make him an offer most people couldn't refuse, but there's one problem: Dylan is a Californian through-and-through; there's no way he could ever move to New York. That is, until, he politely arrives to indulge the magazine with a courtesy interview and meets Jamie (Mila Kunis), a young woman whose mission is simple: sell Dylan on the job and on New York before he heads back home and to his old, comfortable job. She, of course, succeeds. Dylan becomes one of the most important people at one of the country's most recognizable magazines, but it turns out moving to New York had another benefit: a burgeoning -- and completely platonic -- relationship with Jamie, who quickly becomes Dylan's best friend. One night, a discussion of the ins-and-outs of Romantic Comedies -- what really does happen after that magical final kiss, and what really should and would have happened to the couple through their relationship in real life -- lead Dylan and Jamie to mull over the idea of no-strings sex. They talk one another into exploring the possibilities, and they quickly develop a rich and satisfying but emotionless sex life. But can they remain best pals while sharing the same bed? Will their sex life bring them closer to that Hollywood magic moment, or will the complications of real life split them apart?

it's a rarity these days, but Friends with Benefits is actually a very good sex-centric Romantic Comedy. There are a number of factors working in its favor, including the aforementioned self-awareness. It's a real pleasure to watch the movie stray from, embrace, stray from, embrace, and so on and so forth the typical Romantic Comedy elements. The back-and-forth feels so natural thanks to the characters' desire to stay away from make-believe, only to inadvertently or, sometimes, deliberately slip into Hollywood Romantic Comedy bliss. The movie just exudes a very carefree and happy-go-lucky but at the same time smart, clever, and strongly-constructed tenor. The film is often all over the place, but it works because that's what life is: full of uncertainties, new ideas, ebbs and flows, happiness and sadness, secrets and reveals, and a general unpredictability. It's the latter that makes this a good, maybe great, sometimes borderline spectacular entry into its genre. Friends with Benefits perfectly bobs and weaves in and out of various elements, both original and wholly cliché, and does so with a self-assuredness that's largely absent in similar films. It knows it's got something special going on, and there's not really much of a flaw anywhere in the movie; maybe it could have toned down the sex and focused a bit more on the plot, but the couple's intimacy is so much a part of the story that the undercover action never feels too intrusive or gratuitous.

The sex -- and everything else -- really works because the leads are just so good together that the whole things captures a pleasantly realistic and balanced tone. Nothing feels grossly exaggerated for sheer comic effect, which comes back to that self-aware element that allows the film to go to various extremes while remaining firmly within the basic confines of the plot. And boiled down, this is still a pretty basic boy-meets-girl tale, just explored through a somewhat different prism than the usual sorts of movie Friends with Benefits so openly mocks but at the same time so openly embraces. It's amazing at how effortlessly, intelligently, and humorously the movie explores such complex issues like life and love and friendship. It eagerly and expertly explores ideas on human emotion, interconnection, commitment, and understanding. Can sex and friendship co-exist? Does intimacy yield an emotional attachment that runs deeper than a close personal but platonic connection? Can the combination of sex and friendship create something that neither alone can make, or are one or both just pleasant byproducts of destined souls, time together, and an agreeable alignment of those core elements noted above, emotion, connection, commitment, and understanding? Actors Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis are so good together, and the script so smart and balanced, that such questions aren't necessarily answered, at least not overtly so as they are in other films of this sort, and that's perfectly fine. The relationship remains both realistically complex but also Hollywood magically simple through to the end, an end which will probably leave viewers divided on what fate really has in store for the characters and what the movie is really trying to say about life, love, sex, and friendship in both the real world and in the movies.

That it's this far into the review and there's still been no mention that Friends with Benefits basically explores the same territory as another new-ish movie, No Strings Attached, goes to show just how well Director Will Gluck's film stands on its own. It doesn't need the comparative crutch because it's nowhere near as shallow and dull as that one-trick pony, but given that Friends with Benefits is the Deep Impact, the A Bug's Life (read: the better of these "similar movies coming out at the same time" movies), of the two, maybe a quick overview of the differences will help audiences decide which one to try. Friends with Benefits is the far more complex but at the same time the far more interesting and dynamic of the two; it enjoys the merging of all of the qualities necessary to elevate a movie above genre norm, elements far too often lacking in Sex Comedies that eschew deeper plot elements and certainly far better developed characters, hoping instead that lame situational humor will carry the movie to box office success. Friends with Benefits has a real story to tell, with real characters and emotions, believable situations, and an understanding of what it is, where it's going, and both the real-life and movie-magic expectations that anymore go into love, friendship, and everything in between. Where other movies stop at the idea, Friends with Benefits fully explores via an intelligent and well-constructed script the ins-and-outs of the concept in tandem with smart direction, sound editing, and excellent acting. It's about time the Romantic Comedy boldly goes where it should have gone a long time ago.

[CSW] -2.9- It had genuinely funny parts and a great cast. Way better than the mediocre "No Strings Attached". Unfortunately, this movie will probably be passed over by many because the plot is so similar to "No Strings Attached". If you generally enjoy romantic comedies with a bit of adult humor, I can't imagine you not enjoying this one.
[V4.0-A3.5] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box.

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