Love and Other Drugs, No Strings Attached and Friends With Benefits: A Comparative Review/Analysis of the ‘Non-Committal Sex-Friend Comedy.’

Little note on the posters – all quite similar. Lots of blue, white and brown. Also notice that ALL SIX of our protagonists are brunettes, ain’t that something?

The Reviews:

Love and Other Drugs was out first, co-written and directed by Edward Zwick, whose other films include Blood Diamond, The Last Samurai, and, the closest thing in his repertoire to this project, About Last Night… from 1986. The film is based on an autobiographical account by blogger Jamie Reidy of his own career in pharmaceuticals. As such, the pedigree of this project may lead you to expect something more ‘adult’ than your average rom-com.

Set in 1996, (so maybe not too much of a cultural jump for Zwick, then) the film follows Jamie Randall who, after losing his job as a smooth-talking electronics salesman, trains as a representative for Pfizer. While courting the highly-esteemed Dr. Knight in an attempt to sell him an alternative to Prozac, Jamie meets Maggie Murdock, a 26-year-old collage artist with early-onset Parkinson’s disease. The two hit it off, and begin a pager-prompted 1 sexual affair. After a slow start, things pick up for Jamie (ha!) at Pfizer when he begins selling Viagra, a new 1 anti-impotence drug.

I felt Love and Other Drugs had promise. It’s the ‘odd one out’ of the three films I looked at, as its plot wasn’t solely focused on the affair between Jamie and Maggie, but also on Jamie’s sales career with a drug giant, and Maggie’s struggle with being diagnosed with a degenerative disease at a young age. Sadly, I felt the relationship between the two of them was focused on to the detriment of these, in my opinion, much more interesting stories. Anyone can make a sex-friends movie (Ivan Reitman and Will Gluck subsequently direct one each within months!) – why not make the pharmaceutical-salesman movie, or the 26-year-old-with-Parkinson’s movie?

The cast is fine – Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, Oliver Platt, and Hank Azaria lead, and cult stars Gabriel Mecht and Judy Greer pop up in cameo roles. But unfortunately, not one of them is given a likeable character to play. I initially wrote that the women in this film are especially despicable as they all desperately seek sex and/or money, before I realised that this is equally true of the male characters. (Sorry for prematurely slut-shaming.) It seems that everyone has an opinion to share about Maggie’s breasts – ‘amazing tits’ is the oh-so-clinical expression used by her DOCTOR, while a subplot in which Jamie’s brother Josh moves in with him, after getting kicked out by his wife because of an internet porn addiction, introduces the sleaziest, most disgusting character I’ve seen in a comic film since Simon from True Lies. And at least Simon is HILARIOUS and played by the almost-overbearingly-charismatic Bill Paxton.

STILL WOULD, PAXTON.

Smug, cocky, his dialogue composed of quintessentially American smooth-talk, (‘What are you thinking about?’ ‘Money.’) Gyllenhaal gives the world a great George Clooney impression, but not a lot else, while Maggie’s physical struggle with Parkinson’s is depicted a lot better than the emotional stress of same. I was looking forward to this film the most out of the three and it, unlike a man using one of Jamie’s little blue pills, was a complete let-down.

Next was the Ivan Reitman-helmed No Strings Attached. It has a strong, if not superstar ensemble cast, led by Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher, featuring Greta Gerwig, Ludacris, Jake Johnson (from New Girl!), Mindy Kaling, and Cary Elwes3. Oh eh, and KEVIN KLINE, who is a superstar and is absolutely wasted in this film, both in terms of how little his character is given to do, and how many substances said character chooses to abuse.

Look at that nonchalance. ‘Of COURSE I won, I’m Kevin Kline.’ He sure could teach these No Strings Attached kids a thing or two about a sex scene.

Our leads here are Emma and Adam, who meet at summer camp, at a college party, and at a farmer’s market over the course of about ten years before a drunk and devastated Adam ends up at Emma’s place after some bad news. The two have sex for all of 45 seconds and then decide to do it again on a regular basis. Emma is a doctor and is ‘too busy’ for anything more serious than having ‘someone who’s going to be in my bed in 2A.M. who I don’t have to lie to, or eat breakfast with 4; while Adam, a runner and aspiring writer on a Glee-esque TV show, is not looking for anything serious either, after the emotional devastation of learning that – and this is the bad news from earlier – his ex-girlfriend has shacked up with his pot-smoking, pill-popping, Purple Drank-ing father.

No Strings Attached is light and it flows well, mostly owing to Reitman’s characteristic easy-going direction. Unfortunately, the laughs are mostly sought from dialogue which isn’t funny enough to justify its crudeness and ends up feeling a bit embarrassing, such as Gerwig’s Patrice describing menstruation as ‘a crime scene in my pants’. A scene in which Emma confronts two women in Adam’s apartment and, thinking they’re rivals for his affection, starts comparing them to pumpkins because they’re ‘so orange’, while less crude, is the apex of this embarrassment. CRINGE.

The ensemble cast is the strongest element here. Kevin Kline as Adam’s father Alvin gets some laughs in, sending up his thespian image and admitting on his sickbed, despite his new girlfriend’s best efforts, his ignorance of popular rap: ‘I really don’t like the Little Wayne. I can’t understand what he’s saying.’ The burgeoning relationship between Patrice and Eli, the best friends of the two protagonists, is a welcome comparative subplot which (let’s be cynical) works to validate conventional, ‘traditional’ monogamous heterosexual relationships. We see them going on dates, having dinner at home, meeting each other’s families, etc., obviously to serve as a counterpoint to Emma and Adam’s affair and to show this process, not as ‘fake’ (I’ll come back to that), but ‘normal’.

No Strings Attached then, is contrived and not very good in a broad consideration of all film, but as a romantic comedy, sadly, it’s pretty average and it’s by no means the worst5, largely due to Reitman’s zippy direction and solid performances from a supporting cast who deserve better material. I also want to commend it, before I move on, for being the only film of the three in which the two lead characters highlight the use of contraception in relation to their reckless sex. SERIOUSLY YOU GUYS?!?

Friends With Benefits is the most recent, directed by Will Gluck and starring Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis as the titular friends. This film shares a namesake with Love and Other Drugs, only this time, Jamie is a woman, a head-hunter6 who procures a lucrative editorial job at GQ’s New York office for LA-based Dylan, previously seen in charge of a team of people who seem to write his blog for him 7. Off the point, but damn if I didn’t think Timberlake would make a good Mark Zuckerberg as he stood there talking to his staff
8. As Dylan doesn’t know anyone else in town, Jamie shows him around a few times and they build up a rapport. Both recently single, the two discuss how much they miss having sex during one tipsy night in and very quickly, very Seinfeld-y9, they connect on a more physical level. Family dramas, rival job offers and attempts to see other people threaten this unusual arrangement, but I don’t think I need to tell you that not friendship, not sex, but LOVE, conquers all in the end.

I don’t mind telling you that this was the one I had been dreading the most. Off the record10, Timberlake doesn’t do a lot for me, while Kunis, even after a decent turn (or should that be pirouette?11) in Black Swan, would still trail behind Natalie Portman and Anne Hathaway in terms of actresses who would draw me to a film. EVEN AFTER WATCHING THE PREVIOUS TWO FILMS WHICH I DID NOT LIKE.

Yet, all things considered, Friends with Benefits delivers on its own terms, a young, ‘hip’ sex comedy. The believable chemistry between Timberlake and Kunis probably saves the former from being out of his depth in their scenes together, while support from Richard Jenkins, Patricia Clarkson, Emma Stone and Andy Samberg (briefly), not to mention a scene-stealing Woody Harrelson and snowboarder Shaun White as himself, develop and define our protagonists outside of the sexual relationship at the film’s centre.

Some of the jokes have that borderline embarrassing quality to them that we saw in No Strings Attached (“Do you know how hard it is to pee with a hard-on? It’s like two lanes of traffic merging into one!”) but director Will Gluck, previously responsible for Easy A and Fired Up, is used to raunchy source material and handles the laughs well.  The same maybe can’t be said of the film’s more serious scenes, such as Dylan’s father becoming publicly disorientated as a result of his Alzheimer’s, or a confrontation between Dylan and his sister in which he claims Jamie is ‘too fucked up’ to consider a serious relationship, which are delivered with an uncomfortable lack of emotion considering the delicate issues at hand. Of course, the common denominator in these lesser scenes is Timberlake, not the strongest actor, which becomes especially apparent in his shared screen-time with Oscar-nominated pros Richard Jenkins and Woody Harrelson…and, eh, Dharma from Dharma and Greg.

I can’t believe what a free spirit you are!

Apart from nailing a few punchlines (‘after college I was really into cargo pants!’), Timberlake made me wish he’d just make more music/SNL Digital Shorts. Having said that, Will Gluck made me wish he’d make a few more films like these, so not a wasted endeavour by any means.

So, in short, that’s the review:  Friends With Benefits > No Strings Attached > Love and Other Drugs.
You can stop here if that’s all you wanted. I don’t mind. I’m aware this has been a lengthy blog.
But I’m still not finished, and if you want a deeper analysis of what drives these characters into the beds of relative strangers, READ ONNNNN!

Footnotes:

1. It’s 1996, remember.
2. Still 1996.
3. Cary Elwes: why you play doctors so often? Also, whenever I see him as a doctor in things, it reminds me of when Tom Hulce was Will Ferrell’s doctor in Stranger than Fiction. I guess I just see them the same way – cute and famous in the 1980s, old and playing doctors in the 2000s.
4. Poor Emma, years of medical school and mounting debt and her grammar is all over the place. OH NO WAIT, THAT’S YOU, PROFESSIONAL SCRIPTWRITER WHO GOT PAID TO WRITE THIS, ENDING A SENTENCE WITH A PREPOSITION! (/grammarnazi)
5.Oddly enough, ‘Date Movie’, which sends up the conventions of rom-coms, and as such should be something I’d enjoy, is in fact the worst film of any genre I have ever, ever seen. EVER. WORST.
6.There’s an opportunity for a dick joke here which is never made in the film. What a waste.
7.If you type ‘Friends with Benefits, Dylan’ into Google, the first suggestion is ‘Dylan’s job’, suggesting I’m not the only person who wasn’t 100% on what it is he actually does.
8.Though, not as good as Jesse Eisenberg, who does nail it in The Social Network.
9.Arguably, none of these three films would exist but for ‘this’ (or ‘that’?) scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6V1ymoKPTAk
10. BOOM.
11.First the Timberlake joke and now this? ON. FIRE.

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