Rated R (Sexual Content and Language)
Starring Justin Timberlake, Mila Kunis, Patricia Clarkson, Jenna Elfman, Bryan Greenberg, Richard Jenkins, and Woody Harrelson
I knew exactly what was gonna happen in Friends with Benefits. In fact I'm pretty sure the stupidest person on the planet can predict how Friends with Benefits is gonna end. This whole topic of having sex with your friend for fun but it will never work because then you'll fall in love is certainly getting old (thanks to that horrendously similar movie last January, No Strings Attached). However I doubt that anyone will loathe Friends with Benefits thanks to the terrific chemistry between its two leads, Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis.
They're perfect together. They're friendly, attractive, funny, and normal human beings. The only flaw I saw is how they complain about being dumped all the time because come on, who in their right mind would dump someone who looks like Justin Timberlake or Mila Kunis? Get real. Let's just say that they're having loads more fun in the movie than Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman. The movie is also directed by Will Gluck (Easy A) with over a thousand times more enthusiasm than Ivan Reitman did in No Strings Attached. The dialogue is fast, funny, and many times very clever. Patricia Clarkson and Woody Harrelson give hilarious supporting performances.
The only problem that these "screw your friend and you'll fall in love" lack is explaining HOW exactly these two people will fall in love. Is it just the sex? Is it that they just spend more time together and thus start to like each other more? Is there supposed to always be a specific moment between the two people that make them like each other more? In Friends with Benefits there's a scene where Timberlake asks Kunis if they can have sex for the night. Kunis rejects. Then they talk for the whole night and get a little bit drunk. Then as they're lying in bed they "look into each other's eyes" and then have sex. Boom. They like each other. But why? Why do they start liking each other there? Is it just cuz they talked more? They've been talking together the whole damn movie!
I definitely think Hollywood should wait a decade or so to make another movie about this topic of sleeping with your friend for fun and how it seems to always be impossible. Hopefully the next movie about this will do a better job of explaining more clearly how the two people start to like each other. Perhaps I'm just being too paranoid. Who knows. See Friends with Benefits for its cuteness and its lovely leads.