There’s an old school sex comedy vibe that lingers around the premise of director Gene Stupnitsky’s ‘No Hard Feelings,’ which features a down-on-her-luck 32 year old Maddie (played by Jennifer Lawrence), who takes on a strange Craigslist posting from helicopter parents who wants to bring their sheltered son out of his shell by having sex with him before he hits college. The risque subject matter runs along the lines of films like ‘American Pie’ and even the older films like ‘Risky Business’ and ‘Porky’s.’ These older examples did not have today’s progressive – and even militant and extreme progressive values – to contend with in the forming of their comedies, which makes ‘No Hard Feelings’ a delicate matter to attend to.
After all, how does one even find the humor in a story about parents manipulating circumstances so that their son can be devirginized before college? In an era when consent is vital, how does Stupnitsky and co-writer John Phillips go about this?
Never, in the film, does the film glorify nor romanticize what the parents of Percy (played by Andrew Barth Feldman) are doing for him. In fact, all throughout the film, Maddie and her friends question the parents and make fun of helicopter parents and Maddie is constantly trying to defend or justify her taking the job in the first place.
Key to the narrative is Maddie’s need for the car that is being offered for the service. As payment for “dating” their son, Percy’s parents are giving her a car, one that Maddie needs as an Uber driver, whose car was repossessed. Maddie needs the money to save her home that her deceased mother had left her.
It’s a desperate time that calls for desperate measures and this is where Stupnitsky and Phillips lean into in their film. Instead of focusing on the sex aspect, they put the focus on how desperate Jennifer Lawrence’s Maddie is to get that car: the crazy situations they put her in, the physical comedy that arrives with slapstick situations that gets her very, very hurt – and which we can laugh at because she’s not a very nice person, after all, she’s willing to seduce a young man for a car – and, interestingly enough, the areas by which the generation gap between the 32-year old Maddie and the 19-year old Percy are different in relation to sex.
Because Percy is not an easy target. He’s a loner with severe trust issues from a story point that is explored as Maddie gets to know him. What’s interesting is that the techniques that Maddie thinks boys his age would find sexy are completely not sexy to the boys of this generation that is Percy’s age. Maddie is from a time without these progressive values and so everything she does is a red flag and brings out a defensive stance on the young man. It leads to some very funny situations.
There’s so much that this film could have gone for, though: the film could have really delved into the world of helicopter parents, or really fully explored the difference between the attitudes of two generations about sex. One of the funniest lines, to me, is seen on the trailer, when Maddie is searching for Percy at a house party and she goes to each room and finds all of Percy’s peers just hanging out and on their phones and Maddies says under her breath, “Doesn’t anyone ever f#$& anymore?” or something like that.
Unfortunately, Stupnitsky and Phillips merely use these as punchlines – making fun of helicopter parents, making fun of calling Jennifer Lawrence an old woman, – rather than really go hard on the social implications of these concepts. ‘No Hard Feelings’ prefers to stay in the area of light comedy, making full use of Lawrence’s versatility and bravado and Feldman’s charm and earnestness. The two have amazing chemistry and they really make the whole thing work.
Much like the old school vibe that it inhabits, ‘No Hard Feelings’ doesn’t rock the boat too much. It is meant to startle and to tickle but never does it attempt to subvert the genre or do anything revolutionary or groundbreaking. Once the film gets over the hurdle of the “sex comedy” genre and move into light comedy fare, it maintains its light-heartedness and just sets out to put a smile on your face.
What I enjoyed most about the film is how it’s not a romantic comedy and never does it try to justify or normalize the sexual tension between the two characters or the strange circumstances of their meeting. Instead, it puts the attention, front and center, to the needs of some level of personal bond before any sexual act. It does take a few side jabs at “woke culture” and overly progressive thinking but, by the end of the film, it takes a side and stands squarely in that arena.
The funniest bits are already in the trailer but in a cinematic landscape that is filled with big budget blockbusters, a light hearted comedy of this tone and field is a welcome addition to the theatrical experience.
My Rating:
NO HARD FEELINGS is now showing in cinemas nationwide. Buy your tickets here.
