No Hard Feelings
review by Bobby Blakey
For years Jennifer Lawrence was the hit girl with new films coming out all the time. She has more recently been stepping back and seemingly taking on more selective films in a wide variety of genres most likely due to her spending more time with family. Her latest film, No Hard Feelings teams her up with Good Boys director Gene Stupnitsky diving back into the world of comedy co-starring Andrew Barth Feldman, Laura Benanti, Natalie Morales, Hasan Minhaj and Matthew Broderick. Could this film bring the laughs or will it fail to score?
No Hard Feelings follows Maddie, on the brink of losing her childhood home, discovers an intriguing job listing: wealthy helicopter parents looking for someone to “date” their introverted 19-year-old son, Percy, before he leaves for college. To her surprise, Maddie soon discovers the awkward Percy is no sure thing.
I thought the trailers to this film looked pretty funny and was ready to see Lawrence in something lighter than she has been doing for years. At first the film struggles to find its footing with a bumpy road of hit and miss moments that initially had me worried it was going fail to deliver, but it was short lived. Once it gets to the meat of the story it finds rhythm and offers up some hilarious moments.
Most of the later jokes hit pretty good and had me laughing out loud, but there are some that fall flat here and there. I was surprised that it didn’t delve deeper into the raunchy comedy aspect and played it safe at times, but still brought a lot to the genre. There are plenty of these moments here and does embrace its R rating, but maybe my jaded hopes just wanted more since we
don’t get many like this these days.
The biggest reason this film works at all is Lawrence herself. She goes all right out the gate in every way possible complete with a great fighting moment that was one of my favorite scenes of the movie. Big props to her for doing it as well as it was so much more than just the action to endure and takes confidence in executing it. She also pulls no punches when making fun of herself throughout making the laughs work all the better.
While some of it plays up like a by the numbers romantic comedy, the subject matter and Lawrence elevate it to something else. I had a great time with this movie and hope it opens the door for getting to see Lawrence more in these kinds of films as she is quite good at it.
In addition to the film this release offers up bonus content including outtakes & bloopers and featurettes. Grab your copy of No Hard Feelings available now on digital and then on Blu-ray and DVD on August 29th from Sony Home Entertainment.
