Friends with Benefits Review

Friends with Benefits is about Dylan (Justin Timberlake) and Jamie (Mila Kunis) two people who have recently dealt with break ups and meet through Dylan getting a job at GQ and working aside Kunis. They soon grow a great friendship and are so friendly they decide to have sex for sport. “No emotion no one gets hurt they” say but soon they realize that this leads to some complications from just having sex.

So far this summer we have tons of raunchy comedies (Hangover Part two, Bad Teacher, Horrible Bosses, The Change Up and 30 Minuets or Less) but Friends with Benefits is the first raunchy romantic comedy all summer. Does it rank up with 30 Minuets or Less has a great raunchy film or does the comedy sink to the lowly Hangover Part 2?

Compared to this years just sex film No Strings Attached this is a great film. That’s not saying much because I am not a fan of No Strings Attached. While watching Friends with Benefits throughout, I saw so much potential to be something unique and one of the best romantic comedies in recent years but it falter to live up to its potential. That’s not to say it has its moments.

The film has a very star studded cast they perform well here. Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis both have a fantastic chemistry together and that leads to the films laughs. There is Patricia Clarkson here who was last seen in Easy A. Here she plays it over the top and it just did not feel organic. Richard Jenkins is great in everything hes in and there is no difference here. In the film he has Alzheimer’s and he pulls it off. The film also has Emma Stone, Andy Samburg, and Jenna Elfman who do fine with there small screen time. The one problem in the cast is Woody Harlson as a gay sportscaster. Here they play him up as a stereotype gay person and it is just hard to watch and some what offensive.

The film is directed by Will Gluck who is fresh of the surprise teen comedy hit Easy A. In that film he had a lot of clever jokes and they all hit, here the jokes are very hit or miss. Like I mention before, mostly all the jokes come from Kunis and Timberlake and there fantastic chemistry together. The problem is the writers of Easy A did not write this and you could tell. There is certainly not enough witty comedy here to be held up with Horrible Bosses or even the weak Bad Teacher.

Another thing is I had a lot of problems in the story. Both Kunis and Timberlake are suppose to be emotionally damaged but they do not sell this quality. It dose not seem like the break ups they went through in the beginning of the film. They kind of just forget about and even joke around about it. Throughout the film had some surprising elements in the story that was unique but by the end of the film, it was just your average romantic comedy story line.

Overall Friends with Benefits had a lot of potential but by the end I was left feeling empty. It hurts even more to see it fall apart depite it having some fun moments. Sadly overall, I have to say you should.

Skip It!