Year: 2011
Director: Will Gluck
Writers: Will Gluck, Keith Merryman, David A. Newman, Harley Peyton
Dylan and Jamie are both disappointed in their love lives, so they start an arrangement: they stay just friends, even though they'd have casual sex occasionally. They're not after a complicated relationship, but they might be getting just that.
I don't honestly know why I decided to watch this. I mean I've sort of started to watch romantic comedy every once in a while, mostly because then it's much easier to watch some heavy drama, and of course, they are fun, especially when watching for the first time. Most of the jokes get tired over time but hey, it goes like that with every kind of movie or TV show or whatever. If you keep watching that one Monty Python sketch over and over again, it becomes tiring. It still doesn't make humour in romantic comedies worse, even though the quality wouldn't otherwise be as good.
So while I'm at it? Was Friends With Benefits fun? It was, definitely. I've seen a lot of movies that were funnier, but the funny parts in Friends With Benefits weren't disappointing at all. It was just what you could expect from a romantic comedy.
Most of the sex scenes were surprisingly realistic. They weren't made too deep or too sexy, it wasn't pornography. It showed how fun sex actually can be, and how you can actually talk during sex, even about the most common subjects you can think of. It was marvellous. I think movies usually try to glamorize sex way too much. Well, that's not the Friends With Benefits. Sex was portrayed as very casual, which was actually nice, and nobody was called by slurs because of it.
Also this movie had it's serious moments, which are almost an necessity for romantic comedies, there always has to be those more serious, sadder moments. But I loved how in this movie it wasn't only brought on by the stuff between the two main characters. Even though it wasn't too relevant to the plot, Dylan's dad's Alzheimer's disease was portrayed quite well. I don't know about the acting, but the way the people reacted to it, and how the disease affects the whole family and stuff. It was actually a good way to bring some seriousness there too, though it didn't quite get what it deserved. Still, it's great that there can be supporting characters with diseases like that, because when they are the main characters, usually the movie focuses on one thing only: the disease.
One thing that was quite unnecessary was Woody Harrelson's character. It wasn't the whole character that was necessary, it's just... whenever that character opened his mouth, they just had to mention - everytime - how gay he is? Like I don't think there was one scene where he didn't mention it. That was really unnecessary, like, give him something else too! He said good stuff, but it was all ruined because they had to just shove it into our faces, like when straight people talk, they don't have to point it out everytime. Well, yeah, they can be pretty pushy about that too, but still it was like... really? A gay character, and what do we focus on? Him being gay. Ugh. We need something more than that, not just a supporting gay character, put there as a joke.
This movie used a lot of clichés, but I have a feeling it was sort of ironic. I mean the character pointed out clichés in a movie they were watching, and this movie felt like it was going to make fun of clichés, but it ended up using them. I can't decide if the movie was ironically playing with the clichés or if it fell into its own trap.
But, in short, Friends with Benefits was decent. Not the best movie out there, but it's alright. I could point out several better romantic movies: Easy A, which is also directed by Gluck and also has a serious and important message, Everyone Says I Love You and Keeping The Faith. Watch those, but Friends With Benefits offers something different to the table. So it's worth seeing, but those three I mentioned are way better.
☆☆☆☆☆
5 / 10
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