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Recent releases:
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- Dune: Part 1 (reissue)
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- Holdovers, The
- Mean Girls
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- Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom
Friends with Benefits
Stars: Justin Timberlake, Mila Kunis, Patricia Clarkson, Richard Jenkins, Jenna Elfman, Woody Harrelson, Bryan Greenberg
Director: Will Gluck
Standard Hollywood romcom, much in the footsteps of Natalie Portman's No Strings Attached, as mover Timberlake relocates from LA to New York and hooks up with Kunis, who becomes his sex buddy with, yup, no strings attached...and you can guess the rest.
Despite ace contributions from the skilled hands of Clarkson, as Kunis' nymphomaniac mother, and Jenkins, as Timberlake's ga-ga father, this is desperately familiar ground, with the leads unable to find any real emotional tug in the story. Kunis quacks like a duck (close your eyes if you want to follow her dialogue) while Timberlake is agreeable, but pretty blank; although he was excellent in The Social Network, I have yet to be convinced of the actors' effectiveness as a leading man.
The charmless leads, in fact, fail to conjure up any fresh interest in the tired old formula, not helped by a script that never ducks the obvious.
David Quinlan
USA 2011. UK Distributor: Sony (Screen Gems). Colour by deluxe.
110 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 15.
Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 1, Violence/Horror 0, Drugs 0, Swearing 2.
Review date: 06 Sep 2011