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.

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.

 

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