Monday Movie Review: Friends With Benefits

Feeling Monday dragging on us, St. Frances and I watched a movie from Redbox tonight. Friends With Benefits. Here's my review:

Outwardly, FWB tries to undermine the romantic comedy formula, getting you on its side with the knowing wink that we-know-you've-all-seen-this-before, but really it marches in lockstep to genre's cliches. I'm not the first person to notice this; FWB's wink is as sly as Lucille Bluth's.

I could watch Mila Kunis walk around in her underwear all day.

Beyond just trying to wink at you, FWB seems to think it's a self-referential, postmodern rom-com done inside out. And here's where it runs afoul: there's a difference between postmodernism and taking shortcuts. There's a lot in FWB that's unearned:

• The introductory tour Mila Kunis gives Justin Timberlake of NYC; the "emotional damage" and "emotional unavailability" that is supposed to plague each of them;
• The idea that they ever try to date other people, that at any moment in the movie they're not inevitably Meant For Each Other;
• And, most offensively, Timberlake's dad's alzheimers. Now, Richard Jenkins's performance is one of the best things about this movie, but such a darkly comic confrontation with mortality doesn't belong in a movie that goes out on "Hey Soul Sister" by Train.

I love Patricia Clarkson, but she plays the exact same role she did in director Will Gluck's other movie, Easy A. I mean, she has scene-for-scene the exact same mother-daughter chat. Another shortcut?

Seriously, Mila Kunis is sassy as hell, funny, and looks great in her underwear. I don't think I could just be FWB.