No Hard Feelings

7/8/2023

MORE SPOILER-FREE MINI-REVIEWS @ https://www.msbreviews.com/movie-reviews/mini-reviews-2023-edition No Hard Feelings doesn't avoid the genre's formulas, and it could have taken better advantage of its Rated-R rating, but it’s surprisingly much more compelling than expected. Jennifer Lawrence and Andrew Barth Feldman share palpable chemistry in a raunchy, accurate comedy about letting go of the past and coming out of our shell. It truly flew by. Really enjoyed it! Rating: B

7/21/2023

OK, so the underlying premiss here is pretty daft. The "Becker" parents - Matthew Broderick and Laura Benanti are concerned that their teenage son "Percy" (Andrew Barth Feldman) is just a little bit shy, and so they are seeking a willing gal to help get him out of his bedroom. Meantime, "Maddie" (Jennifer Lawrence) is struggling to make ends meet as an Uber driver with only a pair of roller-skates to her name. She spots their ad, they meet and next thing she is chatting to the young man who volunteers at an animal sanctuary. He thinks she's weird, she thinks he's weird - but she needs a car, and that's her prize if she can get him laid! That's what works about this film: right from the double entendres of the title, it's a sex comedy that doesn't actually shy away from nudity (albeit spari

8/4/2023

There’s a sweet life lesson at the heart of “No Hard Feelings,” the supposed “raunchy comedy” from co-writer and director Gene Stupnitsky. What a shame that it’s buried under a heap of dreadfully unfunny attempts at humor, dumb pratfalls,and tired sex jokes that fall flat one hundred percent of the time. No bones about it: this is not just a really terrible comedy, it’s an awful movie all around. Bartender Maddie (Jennifer Lawrence) just watched her car get towed from the driveway, and needs wheels, fast. While browsing the want ads, she stumbles upon an intriguing job listing: wealthy helicopter parents (Laura Benanti, Matthew Broderick) are searching for someone to “date” their introverted 19-year-old son, Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman), before he leaves for college. The pay for sleepin

10/29/2023

Something Something Grooming... yeah, I didn't really get that vibe from this movie. But it was creepy that a kids parents would basically pay someone off to... doink... their son. unfortunately it doesn't work, Jennifer Lawrence is just a horrible person in this. From pretty much start-to-finish she is a horrible human being, and in order for this story to work she needs to be likeable. She needs to be relatable. She needs to be someone that the male protagonist would actually fall for... ... and instead she's the type of person that you don't want to know. She's not even a rougish charmer. She's not a lovable con artist. She's just completely unappealing. And that is why the film doesn't work. Andrew Barth Feldman comes across as legitimately socially awkward, but he

12/12/2023

This was a good little romantic comedy with good comedic timing. It did fall short on some parts of the film but overall a great time

12/18/2023

It’s always a pleasure to come across a film that surprises, and writer-director Gene Stupnitsky’s second feature outing does just that. When this edgy romantic comedy was released earlier in 2023, I must admit that it didn’t strike me as terribly interesting or engaging, coming across as yet another piece of starry-eyed amorous fluff (albeit a tad more suggestive than most) that could nevertheless be easily dismissed. However, in light of the picture recently earning a Golden Globe Award nomination for Jennifer Lawrence’s bawdy yet uproarious performance for best lead actress in a comedy, I decided to give it a look. And I must admit I was favorably impressed to have watched a rom-com that’s genuinely laugh-out-loud funny, full of ample unexpected moments of hilarity. This delightful, del