No Strings Attached

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Sometimes Hollywood seems to have two similar projects in production: Deep Impact and Armageddon; Tombstone and Wyatt Earp; Dante's Peak and Volcano; A Bug's Life and Antz; Turner & Hooch and K9; The Illusionist and The Prestige, etc., etc. etc. Usually, the first movie out of the blocks wins the race as movie fans have had their fill of global threats, environmental disasters, animations, buddy/mutts, twisty magicians (delete where applicable) by the time the second outing is released. No Strings Attached has the Mila Kunis/Justin Timberlake rom-com Friends With Benefits hot on its tail.

Adam (Kutcher) and Emma (Portman) met fifteen years ago but Adam's none-too-subtle come-on didn't go over at all well with the 'frigid' Emma. Five years ago at college, they met at a party and became friends, but lost contact. Last year they bumped into each other again and there was an obvious attraction, but Adam had a girlfriend and Emma, now a doctor, hadn't the time for a boyfriend. Today, when Adam's girlfriend dumps him for his former TV star dad (Kline), he gets drunk as a monkey and wakes up in Emma's apartment, naked. Because Adam is getting over his broken heart, and the emotionally distant, but hot-to-trot, Emma still "hasn't the time" for a relationship, they make a pact to have no strings sex. But can you separate sex and emotion?

It's a fresh idea for a rom-com and even though Ivan Reitman never tries to get into undiscovered territory, it bubbles along quite nicely. Kutcher might be playing Kutcher (which could ruin this for some) but it's fun to see Portman in the role. She and Kutcher might not have the greatest chemistry going on, but they do bounce off each other as they try not to give into their feelings. The support cast of Lake Bell, Greta Gerwig and Mindy Kaling weigh in with a few one-liners. There's even a cute romantic touch when Kutcher turns up during Emma's 'time of the month' with a mix CD boasting tunes of that very theme (although that might divide the audience into two camps: that's lovely/that's rank).

The problem, however, is that you can smell where this is going from here. It's a fluffy rom-com with lashings of sex, yes, but there aren't enough bumps in the road to knock the couple off their stride. In casting Kevin Kline as a dope-smoking philanderer and then not use him is just a crying shame, while an unrecognisable Cary Elwes turns up for some reason and isn't used either. It's fun but Kunis and Timberlake won't have to sweat too much to better this later this year.