Hello Everyone :-)
I went to the pictures last night to see a film with three of my friends. I rarely go to the cinema with other people, partly because of personal preference (other people make too much noise/play on their phones/ask me stupid questions about the film), partly because most of my friends aren’t as willing to spend as much money to go to the pictures as I am and partly (I think this is the biggest factor) most of the time I want to go and see stuff that none of my friends are particularly interested in.
However I do have a rule, I’ll go and see anything on my own except comedies (I just think it looks weird if you’re sat on your own laughing to yourself), horror (I don’t go to see them anyway because horror films rob me of weeks of sleep but if I felt the need I’d have to go with someone else for moral support) and chick flicks (because I like going with a group of my girly mates to see girly films). The last one applied yesterday as four of us went out to take advantage of Orange Wednesdays and see ‘Friends with Benefits’.
The premise is simple. Jamie (Mila Kunis) is a head-hunter who poaches Dylan (Justin Timberlake) from his job at an online magazine in L.A to go and work at GQ in New York
I’ll start at the beginning; it’s got a great opener. Will Gluck (director) clearly knows the genre, knows what the audience is expecting and gives us an opening scene that’s a nice little curve-ball and brilliantly funny.
The Dylan and Jamie relationship seems more than plausible. Kunis and Timberlake (it needs to be said, his body is lush!) have a great onscreen chemistry and I’ve no doubt that with some other actors in the lead roles the film wouldn’t have kept my attention as long as it did. There are some nice supporting characters; Woody Harrelson is great as Dylan’s gay colleague (a subtle twist on the usual rom com cliché of the female lead character having a GBF). Emma Stone and Andy Samberg are brilliant in their cameos, likewise Jason ‘I love him’ Segel and Rashida Jones are fantastically hammy in the spoof rom com that Jamie and Dylan watch together.
There are lots of references to various rom com conventions all of which made me smile. When Jamie shouts "Shut up Katherine Heigl, you stupid liar!" and when Dylan talks about the music in films I had to laugh. The spoof rom com is brilliant as well, coming out of what is meant to be Grand Central Station in New York on to a road lined with palm trees that is clearly in L.A.
The film does fall down when they decide to throw Jamie and Dylan’s parents into the mix. As Philip Larkin so eloquently put it “They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do” and there are various mummy and daddy issues littered throughout the latter stages of ‘Friends with Benefits’. The Jamie/Mum my issues thing didn’t bother me as much as Dylan’s. It’s not been kept particularly quiet but there’s an Alzheimer's thing in this film and it annoyed me. I’m particularly critical, but this Alzheimer's thing comes like a bolt from the blue and is a total shift in gear that I never quite got my head around. I think if it was just a ‘my mummy left and now I have commitment issues’ type of thing, it’d be a lot simpler and the end would have panned out the same, for me it just didn’t add anything to the story.
Also there’s a random mention of Dylan having had a stutter as a child which culminates in him sitting on the Hollywood sign and his stutter returning when he gets scared of jumping down. What was that all about?!?! It was just the weirdest, most unnecessary cul de sac of a plot point to throw in, it didn’t go anywhere!
I like a rom-com, ‘10 Things I Hate About You’, ‘Never Been Kissed’, ‘She’s All That’ amongst others, all have places on my DVD shelves and I did enjoy ‘Friends with Benefits’, ultimately though, it’s a bit of a disappointment.
What starts as a good idea soon gets tangled up in ‘my mum left me’/’I never knew my dad’/’my dad has Alzheimer's’ plotlines and other bits and bobs that seem fairly superfluous. Not to mention the massive rip off from ‘How to lose a guy in 10 Days’ towards the end (girl goes with boy to his parents house and falls in love with him, girl over hears a bit of a conversation she doesn’t like, falls out with boy). It’s a shame really because Will Gluck has demonstrated that he can make interesting and clever rom coms in ‘Easy A’ one of my absolute favourite films. It seems like he had half a good idea but didn’t have the courage to see it though so plumped for a clichéd ending. That said Kunis and Timberlake are great and they are the reason the good bits are so good. Alas, like so many relationships, it was fun while it lasted.
Now I think we need some…
Reasons to be Cheerful :-)
1. Merlin is back! Oh how I’ve missed Merlin! I’m so pleased it’s managed to sustain 4 series. I mean I’ve loved it from the start but having seen the demise of the BBC series ‘Robin Hood’, which was in a similar vein, I was nervous about its longevity in the Saturday schedule. It would appear I’ve been worrying for no good reason because it’s back and judging by these pictures it’s looking pretty good :-) Above all I’m just massively excited about having Bradley James back on my telly on a weekly basis!
2. ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’ is out tomorrow! I’m so excited! Tom Hardy, Colin Firth, Toby Jones, Benedict Cumberbatch, John Hurt, Mark Strong and Gary Oldman in THE SAME FILM! It’s doesn’t get much better than that! I’m so excited I’m feeling the need to do a happy dance every 5 minutes :-)
That’s enough for today.
Goodbye till next time :-)
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p.s I can’t bear Ashton Kutcher so I didn’t see ‘No Strings Attached’ to which ‘Friends with Benefits’ is being rather obviously compared. If you’ve seen both of then please leave me a comment about which one you think tackles the subject of ‘fuck buddies’ the best…
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