NO HARD FEELINGS : Tuesday 27th June 2023.

I saw the MA15+ Rated 'NO HARD FEELINGS' earlier this week, and this American coming of age sex comedy film is Co-Written and Directed by Gene Stupnitsky in only his second feature film Directorial offering following 2019's 'Good Boys'. This film was released here in Australia and in the US last week, has generated mixed or average reviews and has so far grossed US$30M off the back of a US$45M production budget.

The film is set in Montauk on the eastern end of the South Shore, Long Island, New York, where Maddie Barker (Jennifer Lawrence, who also Co-Produces here), is a 32 year old woman working as an Uber driver and bartender. She is facing bankruptcy after her car is repossessed and towed away by a former boyfriend Gary (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), for not paying her taxes to the IRS on the home she has lived in all her life, and which she inherited from her recently deceased mother. Standing out on the street in her dressing gown with her Italian lover stood by, she watches helpless as her car is towed away.

Without a car with which to work her job as an Uber driver she is left stranded and having to rollerblade everywhere during the usual very busy summer holiday season in Montauk. One day her friend Sarah (Natalie Morales) comes across a somewhat unusual posting on a classified advertising website. The ad calls for a mid-20 year old woman to date the son of a wealthy couple in exchange for which the payment in kind comes in the form of a Buick Regal car which is sat in the driveway of their lavish home as clean and tidy as the day it rolled off the production line. And so Maddie responds to the ad and rollerblades over to the home of wealthy couple Laird Becker (Matthew Broderick) and his wife Allison (Laura Bananti) and the brief is for Maddie to become their introverted 19-year-old son's 'girlfriend'. 

Even though they are seeking a woman in her mid-20's Maddie explains that she has the maturity and experience that younger 'girls' just can't offer, which seems to satisfy Laird and Allison. Their son, Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman) has had no experiences with girls, drinking, parties or sex, and he can't drive either, and his parents hope to boost his confidence before he attends Princeton University in the autumn. Maddie agrees to become their son's 'girlfriend', to 'date his brains out', and help him to join adult life, on the condition that this remains a firm secret between the three of them and under no circumstances must Percy become aware of their ruse. 

The next day Maddie makes her move on Percy by attempting to seduce him at the animal shelter he volunteers at. She offers him a ride home, but upon arriving at her house he mistakenly thinks that she is attempting to kidnap him and sprays a can of mace in her face. Despite this, they agree to go on a date the following day. 

Maddie and Percy meet at a bar the next night and then Maddie suggests they go skinny dipping at the beach. While they are in the water, their clothes, keys and phones are stolen by a group of two young men and a young woman. Maddie fights them in the nude retrieving their possessions, but a frightened Percy demands to be taken home. Maddie tries to leave without him and he jumps on her car bonnet, naked, as they are chased by a Police patrol car which they outrun at a train crossing. Back at Maddie's house the pair attempt to have sex, but Percy develops a rash all over his back and shoulders from his anxiety, so Maddie gently nurses him with an easing ointment.

Over the following days Maddie and Percy continue to date, learning more about each other and forging a friendship. Both reveal that they never went to prom, so they imitate a prom night and go to a fancy restaurant for dinner, driven there in a stretched limo. There, Percy meets an old school acquaintance who invites him to a party later that night, while Maddie gives the girl very much the cold shoulder. After Percy and Maddie have a disagreement about their long-term plans, he goes to the party and winds up in bed with that acquaintance, while Maddie frantically searches for him. She eventually finds him after he took an ibuprofen washed down with alcohol, and so Maddie drags him out of bed and shoves his head down the toilet and her fingers down his throat inducing him to vomit. In the car back to her house Percy confesses his love for Maddie.

Percy stumbles across the truth about Maddie's deal with his parents when he intercepts a phone conversation between her and them. After inviting her to dinner with his parents, he crashes her Buick into a tree trashing it royally, they attempt to have sex but this fails miserably, and then he ends their relationship. Maddie takes the damaged car, has it repaired to its former almost as new condition and uses it to pay off her debts, and then decides to sell the house to her friends, Jim (Scott MacArthur) and the heavily pregnant Sarah, because they were going to relocate themselves to Florida where house prices are markedly cheaper than in Montauk. And so selling the house to her friends for a bargain price that they can afford, Maddie decides to relocate herself to California. She reunites with Percy at a Princeton mixer where she gets more than an unwelcome reception from him. He attempts to exit the scene and so Maddie climbs on the bonnet of his car and drives at speed culminating in him driving onto a beach, through a barbecue at which Maddie's clothes catch fire, and into the ocean. Percy pulls Maddie out of the water, and afterwards they promise to remain friends.

Later, Percy is at home packing up his belongings into suitcases to go to Princeton. Bidding his farewells to his parents, Maddie is parked outside who drives Percy to Princeton, while she herself is on the way to California. She reveals that she has a new boyfriend, the rescue dog named Milo, a former Police dog addicted to cocaine who lived at the shelter Percy volunteered at, and whom Maddie met the first time she and Percy met. 

Jennifer Lawrence plays it fearless as Maddie in 'No Hard Feelings' even going the full frontal nudity for her art, and she also proves her comedic acting talents here in this for adults only coming of age romp for a seemingly mismatched couple at opposite ends of the spectrum. Andrew Barth Feldman as the all too innocent, sweet as cherry pie late teenage dweeb Percy is also on point, but Matthew Broderick and Laura Benanti both have the kind of expression on their faces that make you think they signed up for something more challenging and interesting than their one dimensional characters portray here. As for the laughs, they are thin on the ground and certainly won't have you rolling around the aisles, but that said this film does have an emotional undercurrent at its core. 

'No Hard Feelings' warrants three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard out of a possible five claps. 

-Steve, at Odeon Online-