No Strings Attached (Rated R)

No Strings Attached (Rated R)

MOVIESAL'S GRADE: D

Cast

	Natalie Portman	...	Emma
	Ashton Kutcher	...	Adam
	Kevin Kline	...	Alvin
	Cary Elwes	...	Dr. Metzner

Directed By: Ivan Reitman

There are two questions that are central to any movie-going experience, and they will form the basis for all my evaluations of movies in the future. These questions are: 1- Was I Entertained?  2 - Was I In Some Way Enlightened?

The first question is obvious enough. Movies are escapist entertainment at their very core. We go to be transported, to laugh, to cry...to, in short, be entertained. If a movie accomplishes this, it has succeeded on a very important level.

Sometimes, however, films are not "entertaining" as such. Sometimes, they more of a meditation. A vehicle through which an artist shapes our worldview. A good or great film can make you see things in a different way. 

The first movie I am going to review is No Strings Attached, the new romantic comedy starring Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher. Kutcher plays Adam and Portman plays Emma. The two meet at camp when they are young teens, then reconnect years later in their late-twenties. By now, he's a young man trying not to live in his famous father's shadow (played by Kevin Klein) and she's training to be a doctor and has no time, or interest in, love. Can you see where this is going? Of course you can.

The two decide to use each other for sex, no strings attached. Why not? They're both attractive, they get along and, hey, it's just sex. They agree to keep it strictly to the bedroom (or, rather, any place BUT the bedroom) until one of them starts to feel something more. Who will it be? Who will crack first? Can this arrangement possibly last? 

It's a set-up we've seen before, and there isn't anything new here. There's never a sense of really wondering what's coming next. Every plot point is gleefully projected long before it actually happens. This is a movie not about the journey, but about the destination. You know how it's going to end, you just have to sit through two hours of foreplay before it gets there.

Portman is immensely likable and quite possibly the most adorable actress working today. She does well with what is at its heart a weak, 2-dimensional character. She gives the material more depth than it deserves. Kutcher is serviceable as the goofy, in-over-his-head Adam. He's sweet and earnest and not much else. The screenplay holds no deeper truths about relationships, no surprises, and nothing new. The peripheral characters are all weak and largely ill-used. Carey Elwes is in this movie, and they don't bother to do an single interesting or important thing with him. What a waste! Kevin Klein pulls in a decent performance as an aging TV star with a catchphrase and very little else going for him. 

The plot jumps from one point to the next like a metronome. You can probably write the entire screenplay just from this review, or from any of the trailers. By the time the inevitable conclusion rolls around, you are squirming in your seat, just ready for the music to swell and the credits to roll. 

THE BOTTOM LINE:

Entertaining? No. 

Enlightening? No.

Summary: Hey, if you're in the mood for a romcom with two good-looking people that requires no thinking, this is your movie. I'm sure it'll find an audience. That audience just wasn't me.