Friends with Benefits

YA, YOU KNOW IT...
Both Timberlake and Kunis have recently broken up with their partner. Kunis plays a recruiter for GQ magazine, and Timberlake is someone she "stalked" to head up their Art department. Timberlake's ex-gf is Emma Stone. What is interesting is that Kunis' character is the laid back type of person we would expect Emma Stone to play, while Stone (what little we see of her) plays an emotional character we would expect Kunis to play. I don't know if the producers did this by design, or they just lucked into it, but knowing this made the movie funny on a different level. Kunis is savvy enough to realize she has been ruined by romantic movies as she awaits her Prince to sweep her off her feet. You know at the end of the movie, come running to her as she is about to leave, and pour his heart out to her.

Kunis gives Timberlake a fast paced tour of NY, perhaps one of the best sells for Manhattan I have seen in a long time. The movie verbally condemns Hollywood's romantic comedies while...

Surprisingly Good. Restores Faith in Romantic Comedies
"Friends with Benefits" has a lightning fast, very smart script, it moves like a limousine, and it features another stunningly moving character turn by Richard Jenkins. It's good enough that it revives hope for that troubled genre, the Romantic Comedy. It's worth seeing, more than once.

"Friends with Benefits" surprised me. I don't understand why Justin Timberlake is famous - what is remarkable about him, really? - and Mila Kunis does nothing for me. We live in the age of decline of the Romantic Comedy. "Friends with Benefits" was not the forgettable, rote, mass-produced studio product I expected. It was actually really good.

"Friends with Benefits" began really fast, and I found myself bobbing along on the script's energy. I noticed how much I was enjoying it and I kept waiting for the film to drop the ball, to let me down, to betray itself, to fall into predictable clichéd traps. That didn't happen for quite a while, and the film's failings were slow in...

Brilliant Acting; Very Funny!
For me, the track record of the 2011 comedy releases did not seem great, so I was a bit nervous about watching this movie. That being said, I was completely wrong and surprised by this film. Starring Justin Timberlake, Mila Kunis, and Woody Harrelson, "Friends With Benefits" is, well, exactly about what it sounds. Timberlake, upon moving to New York to take a new job, has as his only friend Kunis, who lured him to New York for the job to begin with. As the two develop as friends, so does their relationship develop. While the ending may be predictable, the storyline of the friendship, a character with Alzheimer's, and the "realness" of the film lend reality to comedy.

ACTING: A

Justin Timberlake, Mila Kunis, and Woody Harrelson all shine in this film, with Timberlake and Kunis taking charge of the lead roles and producing a sense of positive interaction and giving believability to the plot and the humor. Harrelson, as a side character (Timberlake's gay...

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