No Hard Feelings: Movie Review

Cast: Jennifer Lawrence,  Andrew Barth-Feldman, Natalie Morales, Matthew Broderick

Director: Gene Stupnitsky

Jennifer Lawrence's foray into R-rated comedy territory is a bit of a mixed bag.

No Hard Feelings, with its central story of Lawrence's Maddie trying to seduce nerdy Percy (Barth-Feldman) in the hopes of getting paid in the shape of a new car, had real potential to shake up the genre.

But what emerges all too often from the Good Boys director is a script that's tonally adrift, with only fitful moments of belly laughs (the majority of which feature in the film's trailer) scattered through a sentimentally mawkish movie that's been told a thousand times before.

What does work though in this film is Lawrence's committed performance to the comedic moments, and Barth-Feldman's reactions at key moments (his response to a pool ball being hit one of the standouts) occasionally gel to create something that's almost befitting of what it wants to be.

It doesn't help that Lawrence's central character is almost unlikeable in parts, with Maddie either being completely unreasonable or totally off-her-head with anger at the rich people living in her coastal town. While her reasons become a little clearer in the back third of the film, the movie spends an unfeasible amount of time making her seem both abrasive and unintelligent when she's not vamping it up to try oversex her would-be conquest.

There's a kernel of a good idea here though, and that's what's so frustrating in parts in this relatively laugh-free outing. The idea of a 19 year old heading to college and needing to come out of his shell is played more for the predatory angle from both the parents (Broderick, Bernanti, both under-used) and Lawrence's Maddie. 

While Barth-Feldman's Percy is game, and lapses into sentiment over romantic notions, the story's more insistent on descending into sentimental mush than sustaining a more edgy rationale.

Sure, we've had this kind of humour before in the likes of American Pie, and one naked Jennifer Lawrence beach scene aside that truly surprises, No Hard Feelings disappointingly really has nothing new to offer the genre.