No Hard Feelings – Film Review
by Fran Winston

Directed by: Gene Stupnitsky
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Andrew Barth Feldman, Laura Benanti, Natalie Morales, Matthew Broderick
In cinemas June 21st

Jennifer Lawrence is an Oscar-winning actress. I say that to remind you of this fact as watching this it is hard to believe.

Lawrence is a producer as well as the star of this “coming of age” comedy which starts out with a premise that will completely give you the ick and as implausible as it sounds, quickly goes downhill from there.

Lawrence plays Maddie, a woman in her 30s who is scraping by tending bar and working as an Uber driver. When her car is repossessed she needs to find a way to replace it. Enter a couple who are seeking a woman to “date” their 19-year-old son Percy (Feldman) in order to bring him out of his shell before he starts college. (Yes, “date” does indeed mean “have sex with”). In return, they are (conveniently) offering a car.

Maddie jumps at this opportunity and the majority of the film consists of her attempt to get the teenager into bed. Obviously, they bond somewhat over the 103-minute running time. This isn’t enough to distract from the fact that the basic premise is creepy and that this isn’t the puerile sex comedy that it wants to be but rather a turgid mess.

To be fair to Lawrence, she does her best. She is an excellent comedic actress and there are moments here where she is quite endearing. Feldman meanwhile has studied the Patrick Dempsey and Jason Biggs guides to being adorkable but unfortunately, he doesn’t have the edge of either of the aforementioned actors.

Many times during this I found myself wondering what on earth Lawrence was thinking signing up. Particularly during a scene where she is fully nude (probably a body double) and gets involved in a fight on the beach. A naked Lawrence body-slamming a young man seems to have been included simply to titillate a certain segment of the audience and adds nothing to the story.

Also, the way Lawrence’s character is treated by Percy’s peers as being older than Methuselah is extremely tiresome. It is made out that they see her as an old woman rather than an older woman, which is a very damaging generalisation to be depicting on screen at a time when agism is the subject of huge debate.

There are many ways that this premise could have worked but by going for the crude option it simply highlights the creepiness. It is also extremely predictable and in the absence of a name like Lawrence, it would have gone straight to the B Movie section of a streaming server.