Review of No Strings Attached (2011) by Chris P — 17 Jan 2012

Emma (Natalie Portman) is 14 and away at camp when she meets Adam (Ashton Kutcher) one tender night by the creek and a star-filled sky. Five years later in Michigan she goes to a pajama party at a fraternity where she coincidentally runs into him again. They are in the middle of an awkward conversation due to their physical attraction to one another when Emma decides to ask him to go "somewhere" with her tomorrow. Well, that somewhere happens to be her father's funeral (really?).

A few years later, Adam is at a farmer's market in Los Angeles when, guess what, he runs into her again. Unfortunately, Adam is with someone else and, after an awkward exchange, he gets Emma's phone number so that one day, they and their friends "could all hangout".

So, this and that happens and one drunken night months later Adam wakes up to find himself hungover and naked on someone's sofa who we eventually see is...you guessed it, Emma. A few minutes later they are no longer in their denial about their physical attraction to each other and soon decide to have a merely physical relationship until one of them begins to have feelings.

Well, I think we can all figure out how long THAT lasted. Complications arise with their arrangement, naturally and soon decisions need to be made about their future.

After watching this movie I wondered if the intensity and gruelling schedule of Black Swan just wore poor Natalie out. Her performance in that movie was perfect. I saw no evidence of Natalie Portman in that role. I was indeed watching Nina Sayers.

We can look back at the recent past and ask why some of these best actress recipients have bad follow ups; Nicole Kidman won Best Actress for her portrayal of Virgina Woolf in The Hours, the she followed it up by playing a Russian mail order bride in Birthday Girl. Halle Berry gave us a best actress as a woman trying to survive after her husband is executed in a nearby prison in Monster's Ball. This was followed by Cat Woman. Sandra Bullock gave us Leigh Anne Tuohy, a scrappy yet big-hearted woman who takes in and eventually adopts a homeless high school student, and then turns around to give us a horrible performance in an equally horrible movie, All About Steve. Am I asking too much?

So this movie comes along and I'm thinking to myself that in the past 10 years I don't think there's anything Natalie's been in that I didn't like (I even forgave her for letting George Lucas direct her), so surely this will be good.

I was full of hope and really happy to see Mindy Kaling with a part as well as others who for the most part put out decent performances in the movies I've seen them in; Olivia Thirlby (The Wackness, Juno), Lake Bell (Prop 8: The Musical, It's Complicated) and, well Ashton Kutcher is just plain adorable (although I'm really hoping someone will give him a different type of part other than the same character he plays in all of his movies).

Unfortunately I was really disappointed. The jokes were flat, the storyline was just a little silly and I wanted to punch Kevin Kline (figuratively, of course...).