No Strings Attached (2011)

No Strings Attached takes up the question posed by Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally eons ago: can a man and a woman ever be just friends without romantic entanglements? But this rom-com ups the ante by wondering if such a thing is possible when the man and woman in question are going at it like Viagra-juiced bunnies aboard Noah’s ark.

Adam (Ashton Kutcher) is a production assistant on a Glee-esque teen musical show whose ex-girlfriend (Ophelia Lovibond) has just shacked up with his famous TV-actor dad (Kevin Kline). When he discovers this, he hits the bottle hard and proceeds to drunk-dial every woman in his cell phone to see if they will sleep with him to get his mind off of the ickiness of it all. One of the women he calls is Emma (Natalie Portman), a long-time acquaintance with whom he went to camp as a pre-teen and met-cute in college and then again about a year before the film’s action takes place.

Emma agrees to let him spend the night at her place, with her fellow med-school interns/roommates Shira, Patrice, and Guy (Mindy Kaling, Greta Gerwig, Guy Branum). Even though Adam wakes up naked on the couch, he hasn’t had sex with any of the apartment’s residents…yet. Emma and Adam get busy before work and decide that they will continue to do so in every hospital supply closet and public restroom in Los Angeles they can find. But commitment-phobic Emma lays down some ground rules first: no jealousy, no cuddling, and no morning-after waffles. In other words, no strings attached.

Directed by Ivan Reitman, No Strings Attached is conventionally shot with high production values overall but is nowhere near as sexy and edgy as its R rating would imply. Elizabeth Meriwether’s script hardly allows for it. There’s no reason on earth that Emma is so resistant to love–she’s the product of a happy marriage and shows no sign of being burned before. (I mean, what kind of moron would burn adorable little Natalie Portman?) The implication is that she is simply an independent, career-minded gal, with some slight social awkwardness. Meanwhile, Adam is a nice-guy romantic at heart, despite being brought up by a hedonistic cad. Happily ever after is written on the Facebook Wall of these modern young lovers long before they ever hit the sheets.

That’s all well and good in theory. In execution, however, Reitman’s sanitized sex-romp montage is not only unsatisfying for my admittedly prurient mind, it also doesn’t provide any explanation for what–other than a heady dose of post-coital pheromones–binds the mismatched pair (he’s so tall and so happy; she’s so cold and driven) together. I’m not saying that Portman needed to trot out her tots, which I’m sure are lovely, every five minutes as Anne Hathaway does in the similarly themed Love and Other Drugs. But how do you call an almost libido-less movie No Strings Attached? I read Craigslist. I know what that phrase means.

More than just pleasing my inner voyeur, showing more of the couple’s naked time would have helped flesh out (pun entirely intended) the thesis that we reveal more than just our bodies when we make whoopee. It would have shown two people falling in love in spite of what they are telling themselves and each other. Of course, that’s as conventional as a love story can get but more believable than the nonstarter subplots and extraneous characters that take up way too much time and space in this film. I’m baffled, for example, by why Kline gets so much screen time (other than his past work with Reitman on 1993’s Dave). I’m even more confounded at Cary Elwes’ fourth-billed status for a barely speaking cameo. Also, Ludacris? Huh?

Many folks will wonder what Academy Award shoo-in Portman was thinking when she agreed to take on this fluffy role, but I’m more concerned with Kutcher. Granted, he’s not the world’s greatest actor, but he’s cute and affable. There has got to be more out there for him than this (and Killers and Valentine’s Day). Doesn’t there?

Having said all that, the movie does have some enjoyable moments, thanks largely to Meriwether’s of-the-moment zingers and the rest of the quirky-cute supporting cast. Kaling, as hilariously dirty-talking Shira, and Lake Bell as a fast-talking television exec with the secret hots for Adam each deserve their own spin-offs, which would undoubtedly be more irreverent and subversive than the source material. Moreover, the movie includes one genuine love story–between Gerwig and Adam’s best friend played by Jake Johnson–that proves you can find love amid all of our texting, sexting, tweeting and poking. Their romance begins with a Facebook friend request and blossoms into something much sweeter. These points are what ultimately make the predictable antics of No Strings Attached watchable and occasionally funny.