Mila Kunis | pinartarhan.com

Friends-with-Benefits-movie-poster-(2011) — Friends with Benefits movie poster via posters555.com

Premise

Jamie (Mila Kunis) is a successful executive recruiter from New York. Dylan (Justin Timberlake) is a successful blog’s art director from LA. When GQ wants an art director, Jamie knows that Dylan is the guy. When he comes to New York, she dazzles him with the city and he can’t say no to such a terrific job offer.

Being new to New York, and seeing how fun Jamie is, Dylan wants to keep hanging out with her. But because they were both recently dumped (Jamie for being too romantic, and Dylan for not being emotionally available), they opt for being really good friends instead of trying to date. And then when they both miss dating and sex, they come up with the idea of having sex, as friends.

Friends with Benefits- Mila Kunis with Justin Timberlake

They think they figured out how to prevent all awkwardness, and for a while, they do have a great time as friends with benefits. Their friendship even survives the attempts of dating others. But real problems start when they will have to face that they might mean a little more to each other than just friends who hang around a lot…

Why should you see this movie?

Friends with Benefits is a lot of fun! I never thought I’d laugh at a Justin Timberlake movie so much. I always thought I could only handle him in small dozes (like in The Social Network).

Well, I’ve got to hand it to him- he made a great couple with Mila Kunis: they were both hilarious, entertaining, sweet and entirely likeable.

This romantic comedy has the right combo: 70%comedy, 30% romance.

It makes fun of romantic comedy clichés, but it is smart enough to abide by the clichés the romcom audience wants, especially our happy ending.

The supporting cast has Jenna Elfman (our very own Dharma from Dharma and Greg) and Bryan Greenberg (One Tree Hill, Prime) and Patricia Clarkson (Married Life, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Cairo Time).

There are cameos by Emma Stone and Andy Samberg- they are the ones who dump Timberlake and Kunis in the beginning of the movie.

Kunis’ Jamie is a big romantic comedy fan, and her favorite movie is the fake movie starring Jason Segel and Rashida Jones. And Rashida Jones, Jason Segel and Any Samberg did star in an actual romantic comedy (well, a bromance) together called I Love You Man.

Segel also co-starred with Mila Kunis in the romcom Forgetting Sarah Marshall. She played the love interest and the movie was written by Segel.

Hawaii Five O’s nerdy medical examiner Masi Oka makes a cameo as a plane passenger sitting next to Timberlake’s Dylan.

It really is funny and romantic. And the sex scenes are hilarious.

Rated at 6.6 on IMDB. See it if you like your modern romantic comedies.

Friends with Benefits scene- Mila Kunis with Justin Timberlake — Friends with Benefits- Mila Kunis with Justin Timberlake. Image via moviecarpet.com

Entertainment References:

Poking fun at other romcoms and pop culture in general, the movie has some familiar references:

Dylan accuses Jamie of acting out a scene from Will and Grace, referring to the airport scene where they first meet. She’s on the conveyor belt, looking for the sign with Dylan’s name on it.

Dylan starts humming the Semisonic song Closing time when they are having sex for the first time. He insists the song belongs to 3^rd Eye Blind, a popular 90s modern rock band that got a lot of radioplay during the same period as Semisonic. He later says that the lyrics are meaningful, and jokes about 3^rd Eye Blind being poetic. In the end, he admits that the song is Semisonic’s.

3^rd Eye Blind is the band that sang “Semi-Charmed Life”, How’s It Gonna Be” and “Jumper.”

Patricia Clarkson’s Lorna wants to have a mother-daughter getaway, and she says it will be just like a Nora Ephron movie. Nora Ephron is the screenwriter of the Meg Ryan movies You’ve Got Mail, Sleepless in Seattle and When Harry Met Sally.

In the beginning of the movie, right after Jamie was dumped by her boyfriend (Andy Samberg), she is complaining about romcoms to her friend. They pass by the DVD poster for The Ugly Truth, a romantic comedy starring Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler. She shouts: “Shut up, Katherine Heigl, you stupid liar!

After Jamie and Dylan decide to stop having sex and going back to being friends, Dylan decides that he will talk to the pretty girl they see. The girl is reading a book, and Jamie comments that it is probably a book by Nicholas Sparks, the bestselling author of The Notebook, Message in a Bottle and A Walk to Remember.

Before her boyfriend broke up with her, she was waiting for him to see Pretty Woman again. Pretty Woman stars Julia Roberts and Richard Gere, and is one of the most famous romantic comedies of all time.

Emma Stone starred in the 2010 comedy Easy A, directed by Friends with Benefits director Will Gluck. Her sexually liberal mother with a happy past was also played by Patricia Clarkson.

Both lead character say that they want to be like George Clooney after they are dumped.

Jamie says “I’m just gonna shut myself down emotionally. Like George Clooney.”

Dylan says “I just want to work and f***. Like George Clooney.”

Also on Mila Kunis

Forgetting Sarah Marshall starring Jason Segel, Mila Kunis, Russell Brand & Kristen Bell

The Black Swan starring Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis & Vincent Cassel

Also on Justin Timberlake

The Social Network starring Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield & Justin Timberlake

Forgetting Sarah Marshall starring Jason Segel, Kristen Bell, Mila Kunis and Russell Brand. Written by Jason Segel and directed by Nicholas Stoller. 2008. Image via 3.bp.blogspot.com

Peter Bretter (Jason Segel) is a musician working on the music of a popular crime TV series, starring Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell). Peter also has been dating Sarah for 5.5 years and he is still very much in love with her. That’s why he is devastated when she dumps her for another guy. Peter gets seriously depressed and despite the common sense his stepbrother Brian (Bill Hader) tries to talk into him, he tries to get over Sarah by going to bed with any woman he meets. When he realizes this is not the cure, he decides to go to Hawaii, thinking that maybe an exotic vacation might help him cheer up.

However what he finds in Hawaii is his ultimate nightmare, as Sarah and her new boyfriend, obnoxious but extremely popular British rocker Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) are there on vacation. Sarah is uncomfortable but Aldous couldn’t care less whether Peter was there or not. So Peter’s vacation is off to a terrible start, except for the one fact. The hotel desk clerk/guest manager Rachel (Mila Kunis) is nice, gorgeous, fun and has a good sense of humor. So in between trying to get over Sarah, meeting the weird but funny hotel workers (stoned surfer Chuck, the Aldous-obsessed waiter, sea turtles and fish-loving bartender, gentle but gigantic food server and the even weirder hotel guest- the newly married, devout Christian who is having sexual problems with his wife and sharing them all with them) and romancing Rachel, Peter’s Hawaii vacation gets crazier and much more complicated than he ever envisioned.

If I had to use one word to describe Forgetting Sarah Marshall, that word would be hilarious. This movie is one of the best comedies I have seen. It is original, funny, cute, entertaining and romantic all at the same time. While this is not your typical romcom, it is definitely not your typical crude comedy etiher. The writer of the film is How I Met Your Mother and I Love You, Man star Jason Segel. While the comedy series How I met your mother never hit home with me, I knew Jason Segel had comedic talent when I watched I Love You, Man. However as it turns out, Jason can also write marvelous comedy as the writing credits of this hilarious film are his.

Yes, the movie does contain some typical romcom elements: Such as the guy tries to get over a girl and then meets another girl and we root for him to get the second girl. But this movie is never all about Peter trying to hook up or end up with Rachel as the supporting characters are always ready in the background to make you laugh. I had a laugh out of every single character in the film.

And while the humor includes male nudity, sex, awkward sex attempts, mentions and implications of blow jobs , sex pointers on the beach and more, Jason Segel has managed to make everything funny and not disgusting.

The Cast:

It is also fun to see a cast you are familiar with. There is a big chance the actors will look very familiar to you.

*Chuck the surf instructor is played by Paul Rudd who you may have known from his movie roles in Clueless, The 40-Year-Old-Virgin, Knocked Up, Role Models, “I Love You, Man”, I Could Never Be Your Woman or his co-starring role in Friends as Mike Hannigan. Paul Rudd is charming and can be funny in any role. While he is not exactly what you can call a diverse actor, he does pull off comedy well.

*Jason Segel stars as Marshall on the hit comedy How I Met Your Mother and has been Marshall since 2005. And he does share some movies with Paul Rudd.

* This is the first time I see Mila Kunis in a movie as I am more familiar with her as Jackie from That 70’s Show. She is playing a pretty different character here and she really is good.

*Sarah Marshall is brilliantly played by Kristen Bell, who I had never seen her play a “bitch” before. She is famous for her title role in the detective TV show Veronica Mars that went on for 3 seasons. She is also the voice on Gossip Girl. While she is never seen, her voice is present in every episode. She also starred in movies When in Rome, Couples Retreat and the sort of spin-off of Forgetting Sarah Marshall- Get Him to The Greek. Get Him to The Greek is a comedy written and directed by Nicholas Stoller, who also directed Sarah Marshall. It features Russell Brand as Aldous Snow one more time. While Russell hit the target here, I am not sure I can take him through another movie. But I guess Nicholas Stoller deserves a chance as he wrote the scripts of Yes Man and Fun with Dick & Jane, two of my favorite Jim Carrey movies.

*It’s refreshing to see Jonah Hill appear in a movie without Seth Rogen around. While I don’t particularly like him, he doesn’t bother me in small doses. You might remember Jonah from Knocked Up, Funny People or The Invention of Lying.

*The stepbrother Brian is played by Bill Hader, a regular cast member on Saturday Night Live. He has stints on two Saturday Night Live episodes I covered: One stars Jon Bon Jovi and the other Gerard Butler. Trust me, if you see those stints, you will recognize Bill Hader.

There is another SNL cast member on the show: Kristen Wiig. She keeps getting small roles in movies. You can also see her in Whip It and Ghost Town.

7.4 on IMDB, voted by over 70.000 voters. I have no objections.

Trivia: In the fictional tv show that is starring Sarah Marshall co-stars a male detective who is played by William Baldwin, one of Alec Baldwin’s brothers. And there is very little Jason Bateman cameo as well who co-stars with Kristen Bell in Couple’s Retreat.

Buy Forgetting Sarah Marshall on Amazon.com at $ 9.99