Summer may be a time to chill, but when it comes to movies, some like it hot. The romantic comedy, Friends With Benefits, may sound smart and snappy with sex that sizzles, but in the end, the message is old fashioned: never let her go.
Do I hear Ezio Pinza crooning in the background? Well no. Friends With Benefits has a booming soundtrack that had me begging for silence. But it also winks at the classics like It Happened One Night. Are Justin Timberlake (as Dylan, an online art director) and Mila Kunis (as Jamie, a head hunter, no pun intended) this generation's Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert?
Friends With Benefits is a raunchy bedroom romp on the premise that two attractive people who can't take their hands off each other can also be only friends. Really? Yes I saw that New York Times feature on the new morality that this movie so heavily invests in: kids can hook up; no emotional strings attached.
Audiences at the Ziegfeld for the movie's premiere on Monday howled at some of the hilarious bits including the lovers arrested on the iconic Hollywood sign-LA's most important monument -- cops homing in by helicopter. Sure the sex is great, at times too much information, but hey they really get along. In the end, it takes the advice of Jamie's hippie mom (Patricia Clarkson with her usual comic brilliance) and Dylan's Alzheimer riddled dad (Richard Jenkins) dropping his pants in an airport restaurant and delivering the old wisdom: if you find THE ONE, don't be stupid. Flash mob optional.
This post also appears on Gossip Central.