No Strings Attached

Rated R for sexual content, language and some drug material.

No Strings Attached is a he and she sex comedy but with an inevitable and not surprising romantic ending. He is Adam (Ashton Kutcher) and she is Emma (Natalie Portman).

They are friends who meet in their mid-teens at camp and talk to one another during which Adam makes a clumsy and shockingly crude attempt at being a sexual partner of Emma. Then they meet while both are college students and again miss becoming entangled despite Emma inviting Adam to Emma’s father’s funeral. Then they meet a third time when she is a driven medical intern and he is a low level crew member of a Glee like TV show. Three strikes and they are out of luck, right? No, not quite.

Adam is the son of a famous actor named Alvin (played by Kevin Kline) who once was a big hit on an old TV show, “Great Scott.” Alvin is a self-absorbed narcissist. Adam is deeply depressed when he discovers that Alvin is sleeping with Adam’s former girlfriend. So, Adam gets drunk and calls all the women in his cell phone directory and asks for sex.

When he wakes up, he finds himself on a couch in a home shared with four interns. One of whom is Emma. No, he did not have sex with anyone. But then Emma and Adam have a quickie and they decide to become “Friends with Benefits.” To have sex with “no strings attached.”

Of course, we know, because we have seen this plot before and will see it again, that this (as one of the characters opines) is impossible. This happens and that happens. They are together, they break out of their sexual arrangement…and then we find ourselves knee-deep in a romantic comedy as old fashioned as they get…except for the sexual language and jokes. Some are actually funny.

This film is really for the late twenty-somethings; young people who have been bruised by their sexual and romantic gymnastics…and still have the black and blue marks to prove it.

A few things that I thought about while watching this movie: 1) Kutcher really does not have a to-die-for body (naked except for a hand towel proves it). 2) Portman apparently has a no-nudity contract. 3) Why does the script have Alvin claiming he is an old man of 58 when Kline is actually pushing 64?. 4) And I have never seen a more unsexy sex comedy. This is an “R” movie and all we get is a few naughty jokes that are about as “adult” as a zillion puny e-mail jokes that circulate among single seniors at a retirement community.

Natalie Portman, who won the Golden Globe for her performance in The Black Swan is clearly slumming a bit in No Strings Attached but Ashton Kutcher is doing yet another light comedy at which he usually is just fine. However, the Portman/Kutcher chemistry is not very combustible. The plot is limp (no pun intended). And frankly, there are more than a few “improbables” lurking in the story, but I doubt if anyone is expected to burn more than a few brain cells on such matters.

It isn’t a terrible movie; it is just a weak one. No Strings Attached is nothing memorable, nothing to trigger any belly laughs and provides no insight on relationships of the heart.

This summer, a movie will be released entitled Friends With Benefits staring Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis (also a Black Swan alumna); guess what the plot is about?

It remains to be seen if they shall do a better job with the gag.

No Strings Attached earns only two bow ties out of five.