Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher play friends who decide sex is simpler than love. It isn’t, and neither is the movie.
Trailer, via YouTube Movies.
A Summer Camp Meeting That Takes Years to Pay Off
Emma Kurtzman and Adam Franklin meet as teenagers at a summer camp their families both attend. They cross paths over the years and never stay in touch. That is the whole setup, and Ivan Reitman’s film does not do much with it.
As adults, Emma is a doctor in Los Angeles. Adam works as a production assistant on a musical television series. The class gap between them is real, and the movie never bothers to examine it.
Then Adam learns his father Alvin, a former television comedy star, is dating Adam’s ex-girlfriend Vanessa. He gets drunk and calls every woman in his phone. He wakes on Emma’s couch.
Alvin Franklin Dates His Son’s Ex-Girlfriend
Kevin Kline plays Alvin with the relaxed shamelessness of a man who has been forgiven too often. The Vanessa reveal is the film’s best idea. It gives Adam a genuine wound instead of a plot device.
Emma’s friends tease Adam for having cried and passed out naked on her couch. She helps him find his clothes. They have sex. They sleep together again at his place and agree to a friends-with-benefits arrangement.
The rule is no strings. The film states it in the tagline: “Friendship has its benefits.”
Adam Gets Jealous of Sam
Adam develops romantic feelings for Emma. He grows jealous of her colleague Sam. Emma is uncomfortable with emotional involvement and ends the arrangement.
She misses him. After a night of drinking she goes to his apartment and they sleep together again. This is the pattern the movie repeats instead of resolving.
At Adam’s birthday, Alvin announces he plans to have children with Vanessa. Adam leaves the celebration. Emma supports him, and he asks her on a real date for Valentine’s Day.
The date goes well. Emma tells him again she is not ready for a serious relationship. Adam ends the friendship.
The Wedding Rehearsal and the Woman at the Apartment
Six weeks later Emma realizes she wants to be with Adam, at her sister’s wedding rehearsal dinner. She calls. He does not reciprocate. She drives to his apartment and sees him arriving with his co-worker Lucy, whom she assumes is his girlfriend. She leaves without speaking to him.
That night, as Adam and Lucy begin to get intimate, Vanessa calls.
Here is the running order of how the film spends its 107 minutes:
| Act | What happens | Who carries it |
|---|---|---|
| Meeting | Summer camp, then years apart | Young Emma and Adam |
| Reunion | Adam drunk on Emma’s couch | Portman, Kutcher |
| Pact | The no-strings arrangement begins | Portman, Kutcher |
| Break | Adam’s jealousy of Sam | Kutcher |
| Birthday | Alvin’s baby news | Kline |
| Valentine’s | The real date fails | Portman, Kutcher |
| Six weeks | Wedding rehearsal, Lucy at the apartment | Portman |
The cast around the leads is deep. Greta Gerwig plays Patrice, Lake Bell plays Lucy, Mindy Kaling plays Shira, Jake Johnson plays Eli, and Ludacris plays Wallace. Cary Elwes is Dr. Stephen Metzner. Olivia Thirlby is Katie Kurtzman, Talia Balsam is Sandra Kurtzman, and Ophelia Lovibond is Vanessa. Reitman himself cameos as a musical television show director.
None of them get enough to do. Gerwig and Kaling in particular are handed the standard best-friend duties and nothing else. That is a screenplay problem, and Elizabeth Meriwether and Michael Samonek wrote it.
Where the Pact Movie Goes Wrong
Ranked by what actually works:
- Portman and Kutcher’s chemistry, which is the reason to watch at all.
- Kline’s Alvin, the only character allowed to be unpleasant without apology.
- The premise, which is sturdy and old and still usable.
- The direction, which is flat.
- The screenplay, which mistakes repetition for escalation.
The film premiered in Westwood, Los Angeles on January 11, 2011, and Paramount released it in the United States on January 21, 2011. It grossed $149 million against a $25 million budget. That return is the most interesting fact about it.
The movie moves from couch to bedroom to birthday party to rehearsal dinner, and every location looks like the last one.
The two leads are the entire case for No Strings Attached. Portman plays Emma as a woman who has decided that competence is a personality, and she is funny when the script lets her be. Kutcher plays Adam as a man who has not decided anything, which is the point of him.
The problem is that the movie keeps telling us Emma is afraid of feeling and never shows us why. A doctor who works the hours she works has reasons. The film offers none of them.
Adam’s jealousy of Sam is the turn the story needs, and it arrives late and resolves instantly. He wants more. She does not. He walks. Then six weeks pass.
That is the whole middle of the movie, skipped.
The ending depends on a misunderstanding. Emma sees Adam with Lucy and assumes the worst, and the audience knows she is wrong, and the film asks us to feel her heartbreak anyway. It has not earned it.
Mixed reviews greeted the release, with praise for the pair’s performances and criticism for the direction and screenplay. That split is correct, and it is also the least useful way to describe what is wrong.
The performances are not the problem. The film around them is.
No Strings Attached wants to be a comedy about two adults negotiating terms. It becomes a comedy about a man waiting for a woman to change her mind. The first is a movie. The second is a stall.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.
