Almost every month there’s an article somewhere bemoaning the death of the movie star. That giant charming presence on-screen that people will follow no matter what movie they appear in. If No Hard Feelings fails to find its audience, a few of those articles will surely appear. Yet as evidenced by the film and its lead performance, no one should be worried. The movie star is alive and well. Jennifer Lawrence proves, once again, that she can carry a film by the sheer force of her on-screen magnetism and performance agility.
As with many such comedies, No Hard Feelings has an implausible jumpstart to its plot. Lawrence’s Maddie is an Uber driver and bartender in Montauk, Long Island, who faces losing her home to the IRS because she’s desperately behind on her property taxes. Her only chance to make money lies in a job listing from the parents of a 19-year-old virgin requesting a young woman to date their son, Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman). These helicopter parents (Laura Benanti and Matthew Broderick) want to break their son out of his awkward phase and are willing to pay for it. In a scene meant for hilarity, Lawrence, Broderick, and Benanti make much out of emphasizing the word “date” in a multitude of ways. It becomes clear exactly what they are asking Maddie to do. This is a raunchy sex comedy after all. Yet it remains chaste for the most part, just full of sex talk. The film finds its comedy in the myriad, and mostly unsuccessful, ways Maddie tries to seduce Percy.
The screenplay, written by John Phillips and the film’s director Gene Stupnitsky (director of Good Boys, and co-creator of the surprise streaming hit Jury Duty), makes much of the economic disparity between the haves and have nots. Maddie and her friends are year-round Montauk residents who resent the rich folks descending on their town from New York City for the summer. The locals depend on these people to make money yet don’t like how they turn the town into their playground. So Maddie feels justified in taking advantage of these rich parents and their clueless son.
Lawrence is the main attraction and the reason the film works when it does. She’s so committed to the part that she makes this sometimes abrasive, sometimes confounding character utterly beguiling. The film gives Maddie a few psychological backstories to explain away her behavior. Yet it’s Lawrence that the audience is watching and no matter how flimsily the character is written, she delivers. Her comedy is utterly physical with pratfalls galore. She has a way with words, whether she’s brushing off someone with cruelty or opening up to a new friend. Throughout it all she remains highly watchable. The ultimate movie star.
Roth’s Percy is the romantically chaste type. He keeps resisting Maddie’s attempts to seduce him. Hence, Roth’s part is rather tricky; he has to plausibly act as if he’s not interested in Jennifer Lawrence. Still, he pulls it off with a sweet disposition that makes Percy’s awkwardness believable, even attractive. The rest of the characters are there to either act as sounding boards for Lawrence or to set the plot in motion and then vanish. Seems like an opportunity missed since the film is set up to be about class differences within Montauk. Yet after the set up, all of that is forgotten.
Unfortunately No Hard Feelings runs out of gas way before its end. Once the relationship between Maddie and Percy is established, the screenplay fails to find them a satisfying resolution. Obviously the conceit must be revealed, recriminations must follow and the madcap pursuit of sex must end. Yet the laughs stop as well. Lawrence remains game, even adding a dash of vulnerability to her performance. But the screenplay doesn’t give her any fresh notes to play and the film limps to its finale.
As a summer lark, No Hard Feelings makes for a nice diversion. Lawrence’s fans will find much to like and her physical commitment to the comedy should add to her flock of admirers. Yet it still feels like an opportunity missed. There could’ve been more laughs, the raunchy elements could’ve been pushed harder. A class satire is introduced but never explored. Most unforgivably when you have a movie star like Lawrence, a more focused, funnier screenplay should’ve been written.
No Hard Feelings opens in theaters on June 23