No Hard Feelings

Lawrence flexes her comedy muscles in both her dialogue and physical comedy, taking some bold swings with some of the things she does on screen, and it pays off extremely well.

Ultimately, No Hard Feelings is the story of two people who are afraid of life for different reasons, and how they help each other lose that fear. I’ve heard complaints that it sacrifices filth for feelings. To those folks, I say — you can always watch “Porky’s” instead.

No Hard Feelings is a nice comedy, courting taboo here and there but largely rounded out with sweetness. It’s an amiable time at the movies—but I was hoping for more of a shock.

No Hard Feelings ends up belonging to Andrew Barth Feldman, who very soon may be one of Hollywood’s go-to leading men (following his year-long stint as the titular role in Dear Evan Hansen). Despite the script’s slightly jumbled ending, Feldman aces his character’s transformation, and finds dozens of moments to truly shine.

It’s a pleasure to find a comedy about bought sex that’s pretty funny – and funnier than the pun in the title might suggest.

While [Lawrence] is game for anything, whatever it takes to pound a laugh out of a moment, it’s not enough in a comedy that sprints out of the gate, buries us under zingers and turns all sensitive and sentimental as it pulls its punches in the second and third acts.

Every pratfall, including the naked ones, is joyless and witlessly timed.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

No Hard Feelings is perhaps misunderstood because of its uncomfortable premise. To me, this is really a comedy that takes shots at the worst stereotypes of generational cohorts: our Gen Z character who is self-infantilising and trapped in a gutless digital culture, and our trashy Millennial character who is ageing into circumstantial failure and looked down upon by the young and old alike. There are plenty of laughs here, mainly awkward comedy, but there's an underlying tone to this story about how we can find ourselves needing to "grow up" at any age, and sometimes more than once.

Pretty funny but awkward comedy movie. Both lead actors acted well. You can give it a try.

There is no greater or timelier subject than proper communication between human beings. So many meaningful relationships could arise; so many world issues could be resolved; so many wonders could be achieved, if only mankind would be honest, listen and consider. It’s a tragedy, then, that “No Hard Feelings” suffers from a lack of common sense and opts to avoid a plot centered around more realistic interactions. This movie could have delivered a deeper understanding of the conflicts between young men and women, a very real problem in our day and age. Instead, the often nominated Gene Stupnitsky, chooses to try and be funny thru unnecessarily complex and often unintuitive “comedy” which largely fails throughout the film. We all have experience in coming across incorrectly or incoherently, especially to a romantic interest. We all understand the depth and importance of social interaction and the human sexual and emotional needs we carry. Stupnitsky does the entire industry and even the entire World a disservice by ignoring that aching need in all of mankind. His film is flat, incoherent, thoughtless and a cash grab. The lead and wonderful cast are callously wasted in a film that could have addressed real conflict between young people. “No Hard Feelings” should have been a love letter to our next generation, and a guiding light to them, but instead fails to leave the pathetic comedic impression it intends to achieve. This movie is a horrible waste of time, money and effort and we must stand up and make that clear to developers. Expect more from film and television, and make your corner of the Earth a better place.

The premise of the movie, that a person in their thirties needs to seduce a teenager, was a huge miss for me. Much of the comedy of the movie depends on one being more or less OK with the the situation, so I simply couldn't connect with it. If there was any chemistry between the leads, it was buried by the inherent inappropriate nature of the relationship itself. I just felt bad for the kid, the whole time. They could have easily went with a smaller age gap and completely removed the awkward set up. I'm not sure how this movie is even greenlit, with the current discourse around grooming. It absolutely never would have been greenlit, were the genders of the leads reversed, and justifiably so.