In recent years the R-rated comedy has fallen out of favor, pushed out of movie theatres by hunky but fully clothed, spandex-clad superheroes. In her new movie, Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence attempts to bring soft-core comedy and innuendo back to the big screen with “No Hard Feelings,” a throwback to a time before #MeToo when raunchy romps like “American Pie” and “Not Another Teen Movie” bridged the gap between mainstream movies and stag films.
Lawrence plays Montauk, Long Island Uber driver Maddie, a young woman with only a few dollars in her bank account and even fewer options to earn more after her vehicle gets repossessed. “I’m an Uber driver and I don’t have a car,” she says. “I’m going to lose my house.”
With no job and no prospects, she answers a Craigslist ad posted by Laird (Matthew Broderick) and Allison (Laura Benanti), the wealthy, eccentric helicopter parents of withdrawn nineteen-year-old Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman). The overbearing couple, who keep track of their kid via GPS on his phone, fear he is too withdrawn and ready to attend Princeton University in the fall. “He doesn’t come out of his room,” says Laird. “He doesn’t talk to girls. He doesn’t drink.”
The deal is simple: If Maddie will date Percy, and bring him out of his shell, they’ll give her an old Buick they haven’t driven in years.
“So, when you say ‘date him,’” Maddie asks, “do you mean ‘date him’ or ‘date him’?”
“Date him,” Laird says, “date him hard.”
“I’ll date his brains out,” she promises.
The plan doesn’t get off to a promising start after Percy, fearing that Maddie’s advances are actually a kidnapping attempt, pepper sprays her. As time passes, however, Maddie and Percy’s friendship goes beyond contractual.
“No Hard Feelings” aims to find a sweet spot between racy comedy and heartfelt friendship story and misses the mark on both counts. The silly premise dampens whatever authentic moments Lawrence teases out of the bland script, and the metaphors—i.e.: the old Buick may be broken down, but there’s nothing wrong with it, or Maddie, that a bit of love and tenderness can’t fix—are so heavy handed, they flatten out whatever sincerity is lurking in the shadows.
Lawrence and Feldman are both better than the material, and what success, and laughs, the film has are owed to their performances. As the movie struggles to create a feel-good vibe in the last reel, Lawrence’s considerable charisma comes in handy, but the predictable and ultimately contrived story feels outdated and overdone.
Raunchy yet innocent. Naïve but course. Whichever you want to say it “Good Boys” is a “Superbad” riff on one of life’s rites of passage. Starring Jacob Tremblay, Keith L. Williams and Brady Noon, none of whom are old enough to buy a ticket to see their own movie, it’s an R-rated but sweet film that has more going for it than the novelty of foul-mouthed preteens.
It all begins with a kiss. Or at last the promise of a kiss. Sixth-grader Max (Tremblay) has been invited to his first kissing party, where he has plan to plant one on his crush Brixlee (Millie Davis). “Tonight is our first middle school party. There’s going to be girls there. You know what that means?”
Trouble is, he’s never actually spoken to her or kissed a girl. His pals Lucas (Williams) and Thor (Noon), the Beanbag Boys, can’t offer any practical advice in that regard but are game to help their friend get some smooching experience. “We need to see real people kissing. That’s the only way we’ll learn what we’re doing!”
Googling porn doesn’t illuminate anything. “They didn’t even kiss!” “Not on the mouth, anyway!” They use Max’s dad’s (Will Forte) drone to try and spy on the girls next door (Midori Frances and Molly Gordon) but they catch on before the boys learn anything useful. Desperate for information the hormonal hombres hit the road—literally, dodging traffic on a bustling six lane highway—that sees them encounter a sex doll they assume is a CPR practice dummy, vitamins that are actually MDMD and a frat house filled with bros. “You let us run around with drugs, fight with frat guys, and lock a cop in a convenient store with what I now suspect is a d*ldo,” Lucas says to Max.
“Good Boys” is best summed up by its rough ‘n ready Red Band trailer. The kids swear, a lot—Art Linklater would be shocked by the potty mouths on these darned kids—and find themselves in adult situations that often veer over into slapstick, and yet, there’s a real sweetness to the proceedings. They are at that very specific time in life between childhood and adolescence, just on the cusp of not wanting to put away childish things but speeding toward a hormonal future they don’t quite yet understand. That leads to very funny misunderstandings and an escalating series of events.
At its raunchy little heart, however, “Good Boys” is about growing up and growing apart. The Beanbag Boys may think they’ll be friends forever, but as the girls next door explain, they’re probably really only friends because they live close together, have parents who are friends and are in the same class. It’s a bittersweet realization in a movie that succeeds because of the chemistry between the three leads.
