JENNIFER LAWRENCE BARES ALL AND GOES FOR THE LAUGHS IN ‘NO HARD FEELINGS’

The days of the raunchy comedy seem to come and go depending on social attitudes. The 80s were the height of them with a massive resurgence in the late 90s and early 2000s. While they were always done for laughs, they never had a very strong cast other than a token star while the majority of the actors were young no names. When Jennifer Lawrence was young, she was not stuck in those types of movies. She exploded onto the scene in the movie “Winter’s Bone”. She had been acting in small movies and TV shows as a teenager, but when she did this film, she moved to the front of the line of most wanted actresses. She won an Oscar in 2012 for “Silver Linings Playbook” and was the main character Katniss Everdeen in the Hunger Games movie adaptations and Mystique in the X-Men franchise. When she was showing up in this comedy “No Hard Feelings” she took a fair amount of flak from critics wondering what she was doing taking what most saw as a step backwards. It seemed akin to when Sandra Bullock did the film “All About Steve” that she won a Razzies for.

The plot of this comedy is a bit unusual and direct: parents of a kid that is socially awkward who is set to head to Princeton want someone to date him, so he loosens up a little and has some social awareness heading to college. I’m putting that lightly as the understanding of “date” as explained by his parents played by Matthew Broderick and Laura Benanti is a bit more than just going out for pizza. Lawrence plays Maddie who is an Uber driver that loses her car and her main source of income during the summer tourist season. Maddie is in no way a lovable character and is in the role usually reserved for men who are lovable scoundrels always looking for the next hookup. She uses her feminine wiles to coerce her way through life and jump from relationship to relationship. She has full on commitment issues that have caught up with her as every bridge has been burned it seems. Percy, played by Andrew Barth Feldman is the most socially deprived rich kid you will ever meet. Shy and almost paralyzed by the thought of social interactions he can barely function outside of his bedroom. Maddie can get a car from Percy’s parents by “dating” him and getting him to come out of his shell. Maddie’s attempts to get him to engage her become wilder as the dates go by and his slow emergence from his cocoon is infuriatingly slow.

The first thing I thought when I saw J. Law in this film was not one of revulsion, but one of stepping outside what Hollywood was trying to keep her in. While she has played roles with bits of comedy to them, she has never really been in a full-on comedy. It’s sad because she is one of the funniest and real people in all of Hollywood which makes her very lovable and relatable to fans. She deserves to do a piece like this. Yes, the movie is a departure for her and is a bit low brow at times. However, it allows a movie like this to really breathe with her clout as a main character. If the genders were switched to what they normally are in these films no one would bat an eye, but it would be an even lower brow movie that you rent on the weekend with you bros or besties. Andrew plays Percy almost too perfectly that you would almost think he was so stuck in a form of depression that he’s close to snapping. Both characters are damaged due to past instances that explain exactly why they are that way. That was refreshing because usually it’s just “he’s a charming a-hole and she’s a shy girl” and the girl suddenly realizes that she’s hot when you take her glasses off and he has a heart of gold once he experiences real love. These characters can’t be fully fixed. That’s the best draw of this film that the two of them will never become a real couple nor fully change who they are. Sure, they grow as characters, but it isn’t just a simple flip of the switch. “No Hard Feelings” is also a fun comedy that will have you laughing, Lawrence’s comedy timing and willingness to be silly as well as funny is wonderful. She even goes as far as to beat up people that are trying to steal her and Percy’s clothes while skinny dipping. Most movies would have the couple have to cover up with whatever they could find and sneak home. Maddie doesn’t roll that way and she instead kicks their butts while fully naked. I highly suggest checking it out on Netflix or renting in on Amazon Prime or YouTube. While it is a movie plot you have seen before if the roles were reversed with any other actors, you would shrug your shoulders and scroll through Instagram the whole time, but with good, respectable actors in these roles they come off as more realistic. You want to see where they go and you can more readily root for them to succeed. In the end your viewing is better rewarded with reality versus a canned ending.