Friends with Benefits

This is a film for a girls' night in or a date movie, but certainly cannot be taken seriously. It's supposed to be a comedy, and there are some funny moments, but there are also many serious ones, too many for a film like this. The film involves Dylan (Justin Timberlake) and Jamie (Mila Kunis) and their relationship of trying to remain friends while having sex. You and I both know where this is headed, it's been done before, and already this year with the Portman-Kutcher comedy No Strings Attached. Fortunately, this one is better than that one, though not by as much as someone would think.
In Friends with Benefits, Jamie is a corporate head hunter who recruits Dylan to migrate from Los Angeles to the great and powerful city of New York, and she knows that she must sell the city to him, not the job, which is what she does and it works. Dylan takes the offer, and a friendship forms between the two of them. However, both come with great emotional baggage. Dylan's father suffers from, as Roger Ebert put it in his review, movie Alzheimer's while Jamie's mother isn't sure of who fathered her only child. Both parents, Richard Jenkins is Dylan's father while Patricia Clarkson is Jamie's mother, playing basically the same character in Will Gluck's much better film, Easy A.
After some time together, both Dylan and Jamie get hungry for sex, and both being single, they cannot get it elsewhere, so they turn to each other for sex. And they start having sex, and can't seem to be able to stop, until emotions get in the way. Jamie does have another brief relationship with a doctor, but the moment they have sex, he leaves her, but Dylan stays. However, over an extended weekend visiting Dylan's family, Jamie overhears some words that Dylan does not mean, and is merely saying them to get his sister (a great Jenna Elfman) off his back. Jamie then leaves, and Dylan must fight to get her back, which (SPOILER ALERT) he does, but this time they try to have a real relationship, but they soon learn that talking doesn't work well for them, and they begin making out to end the film.
The reason why this film is better than No Stings Attached is merely because both Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis are better in their roles, and despite her Oscar, Natalie Portman just isn't made for these fluffy romantic comedies. The supporting players are great in this film, including Woody Harrelson and good cameos by Emma Stone (who loves John Mayer) and Andy Samberg, and there are some funny lines, but unfortunately for everyone, not too many, and yet there are too many light moments for this film to be a serious one. Grade: B-