After losing her car and about to lose her childhood home, Maddie (Jennifer Lawrence) comes across an ad on Craigslist that could help solve her money issues. Rich, helicopter parents (Allison Becker & Matthew Broderick) want someone to date their 19-year-old son Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman) before college, and as payment they’re offering a Buick. Maddie gets the job and creates a meet-cute at the animal shelter with the awkward Percy. Percy falls for the act, and they proceed to date. After a series of interesting events involving a naked throwdown on the beach, high school parties, and awkward bedroom scenes, Percy discovers the truth and reacts like you’d expect.
Honestly, this movie was more cringy than funny. The parents were very creepy, in my opinion, and I hope there aren’t many parents like that in real life. The age difference between Maddie, in her 30s, and the 19-year-old Percy was very awkward. Did they make the kid that age so it wasn’t as creepy as the kid being 18? Who knows?
I’ve watched a lot of raunch-coms, and this one is just sub-standard. For me, there’s a fine line when it comes to these sex comedies between funny and cringe. This one pushed it into cringe territory with the age difference, and there’s been discourse about that in a few interviews and reviews already. As I suspected, the trailers showed the funniest bits, which weren’t all that funny anyway. The comedy was sufficient but not laugh-out-loud by any stretch of the imagination. I don’t recall any laughing, and I didn’t laugh either.
I will give Jennifer Lawrence credit; she is good at physical comedy. But I am not sure she can carry a movie like she used to at this point in her career. I wouldn’t call myself a fan of hers anymore, but she was the main draw for me. Maddie was the caricature of the typical millennial: in debt, caught working a few dead-end jobs, with a bad case of arrested development. Andrew Barth Feldman was amusing as Percy and was the perfect awkward teen as the film required.
No Hard Feelings was just sufficiently entertaining but not all that funny in the end. This film will inevitably be compared to Joy Ride, which was the superior comedy. But Joy Ride didn’t impact my original score. No Hard Feelings was perfectly fine, but it doesn’t warrant a trip to the theater, unless you’re a huge Jennifer Lawrence fan.
Where to Watch
6.7
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I’m a Data Analyst, from the land of Matthew McConaughey. I’m an avid movie-goer and love seeing films in theaters. My most recent favorite films are Good Time, Only Lovers Left Alive, TENET, and England is Mine. When I’m not at the movies, I’m either reading or watching obscene amount of true crime and historical documentaries.
