No Strings Attached is a movie about two people who decide to sleep together without love, and it spends almost the entire runtime proving that is not a decision anyone should make lightly. It is a comedy about casual sex that treats casual sex like the best idea in town, and it never quite figures out why we should care.
The film stars Natalie Portman as Emma, a doctor in New York, and Ashton Kutcher as Adam, a radio DJ who sleeps with women for fun. They meet, they have sex, they agree to keep it casual, and the movie spends the next hour and a half watching them both try to hold onto a relationship that is built on a lie. The setup is simple, the execution is not.
Trailer, via YouTube Movies.
Emma and Adam Agree to Be Friends
The central bargain is that Emma and Adam will not fall in love, will not expect commitment, and will not let the other person change their life. It is a clever premise, the kind of thing that could support a sharp, funny film about adult compromise. Instead, the movie turns the whole arrangement into a running joke about how impossible it is to keep promises when your heart wants something else.
Portman plays Emma as a woman who is trying to be rational about her feelings, which means she spends most of the movie looking frustrated and confused. Kutcher plays Adam as a man who thinks he has figured out the world, and he spends most of the movie looking smug and bored. Neither performance is bad, exactly, but neither rises to the occasion either.
The film wants us to believe that Emma and Adam can have everything — friendship, sex, and emotional distance — without ever having to explain themselves to anyone. That is a hard sell, and the movie does not spend enough time making it stick.
Friends With Benefits Is the Same Idea
The movie keeps circling back to the idea that what Emma and Adam have is not really a relationship, and that is supposed to be the joke. The problem is that the joke is not funny. It is a premise that should generate friction and humor, and instead it generates a dull insistence that casual sex is the future of dating.
There is a moment near the end where the film tries to have it both ways — telling us that Emma and Adam should have been together all along, while also insisting that their arrangement was the smart one. The tension between those two positions is the engine of the story, and the movie refuses to resolve it. It just stops talking about it.
“It’s complicated.”
That is the line Emma uses to describe what she feels for Adam, and it is also the movie’s way of saying it does not want to explain itself. The film is content to let the audience sit with the discomfort, because it never bothers to resolve it.
The Supporting Cast Carries More Weight
The supporting characters are better drawn than the leads. Emma’s friends, played by Greta Gerwig and Mindy Kaling, get some of the best scenes in the film. They are the ones who talk about love and commitment and the messiness of adult life, while Emma and Adam keep pretending their situation is neat.
Kaling’s character, in particular, gets a monologue about why she has never married that cuts through the film’s surface-level comedy. It is a rare moment of genuine feeling in a movie that mostly coasts on easy laughs. Gerwig’s character is less developed, but she still grounds the story in something real — the idea that the people around you see you more clearly than you see yourself.
The film’s weakest link is its own premise. Casual sex is a topic that has been explored many times before, and this movie adds nothing new to it. It is a film about people who have a rule that they cannot break, and it never asks why they made that rule in the first place. The answer is that the movie needed a conflict, and this was the easiest one to find.
Kutcher and Portman Try Their Best
Ashton Kutcher has spent his career playing versions of himself, and Adam is not a stretch. He is a man who is comfortable with his own comfort, and Kutcher plays him as a confident, slightly arrogant guy who does not understand why anyone would want anything more. It is a performance that works on a superficial level, but it does not have the depth to sustain a full-length feature.
Natalie Portman is the one doing the heavy lifting here. She is asked to play a woman who is trying to be rational about her emotions, and she does it with a grace that keeps the movie from collapsing entirely. Her Emma is the only character who seems to recognize that the arrangement is unsustainable, even as she keeps participating in it. That tension is the only thing that gives the film any dramatic weight.
The chemistry between the two leads is present, but it is not enough to carry the story. The film keeps asking us to believe that Emma and Adam are perfect for each other, and the evidence on screen keeps suggesting otherwise. The closest the movie comes to a genuine connection is a scene where Emma watches Adam perform live, and even that moment feels staged rather than earned.
The Comedy Misses Its Mark
The film is pitched as a romantic comedy, but it spends most of its runtime being a comedy about the failure of romantic relationships. There are jokes about the awkwardness of sleeping with someone you barely know, and there are jokes about the hypocrisy of people who claim to hate casual sex but still do it anyway. None of it lands with much force.
The dialogue is often witty, but it is witty in the way that feels like a writer showing off rather than a filmmaker trying to say something true. There is a running gag about Adam’s dog that goes on for too long, and a subplot involving Emma’s friend’s wedding that feels like padding. The movie is trying to be clever, but it is not clever enough to overcome its own tonal confusion.
What the film does best is capture the anxiety of modern dating. Emma and Adam are both adults who are trying to navigate a world where the rules have changed, and the film is at its sharpest when it lets them talk about that uncertainty. But the movie is not interested in exploring that anxiety — it is only interested in resolving it.
The Romance Never Takes Off
The romance between Emma and Adam is the spine of the film, and it is the weakest part of the movie. The film wants us to believe that these two people are meant to be together, but it never explains why. The closest it comes is a montage of them spending time together, which is not a reason, it is just a picture.
The climax of the film is a scene where Emma tells Adam that she loves him, and he responds by saying he loves her too. It is a moment that should be powerful, but it is undercut by the fact that the film has spent the entire runtime telling us that love is a trap. The movie is asking us to feel something it has spent ninety minutes arguing against.
The film is not a failure because it is mean-spirited about casual sex. It is a failure because it is mean-spirited about love. The message is that love is messy, and that casual sex is the clean alternative, but the movie is so uncomfortable with love that it cannot even commit to its own argument. It is a film that is afraid of its own thesis.
A Premise Too Weak to Support
The film’s central idea is that two people can have everything without having to commit to anything. The problem is that the premise is too weak to support a full-length feature. The movie keeps circling back to the same point, and it never finds a new angle to explore. It is a film that is stuck in its own logic, and that logic is not very interesting.
The supporting cast is the one bright spot. Greta Gerwig and Mindy Kaling give performances that are grounded in something real, and their scenes are the moments where the film feels alive. The rest of the movie is competent but unremarkable, a film that is pleasant to watch without ever becoming memorable.
The film’s failure is not a failure of execution — the script is well-written, the performances are adequate, the direction is professional. Its failure is a failure of imagination. It is a film that is content to repeat an idea that has been exhausted for years, and it does not seem to realize that the only reason the idea worked in the past is that it was paired with something new.
A Film That Runs Out of Gas
No Strings Attached is a movie that starts with a promising premise and runs out of gas before it reaches the finish line. It is a film that is clever in its setup but lazy in its follow-through, a movie that is more interested in repeating a joke than in exploring what that joke might mean.
The film is not a disaster, but it is a disappointment. It is a movie that should have been sharper, funnier, and more willing to engage with the questions it raises. As it stands, it is a competent but forgettable entry in the romantic comedy genre, a film that will be filed away and never thought about again.
The film’s final message is that love is messy, and that casual sex is the clean alternative. The movie is so uncomfortable with love that it cannot even commit to its own argument. It is a film that is afraid of its own thesis, and that fear shows in every frame.
- The premise is promising but too thin to support a full-length feature.
- The leads are adequate, but the chemistry never quite takes off.
- The supporting cast, particularly Gerwig and Kaling, are the film’s strongest element.
- The comedy is witty but not consistently funny.
- The romance lacks the depth to carry the story.
- The film is more interested in repeating a joke than in exploring what it means.
- The ending tries to resolve the conflict but never fully commits to it.
The film is not a failure because it is mean-spirited about casual sex. It is a failure because it is mean-spirited about love. The message is that love is messy, and that casual sex is the clean alternative, but the movie is so uncomfortable with love that it cannot even commit to its own argument. It is a film that is afraid of its own thesis.
No Strings Attached is a film that is content to repeat an idea that has been exhausted for years, and it does not seem to realize that the only reason the idea worked in the past is that it was paired with something new. It is a film that is stuck in its own logic, and that logic is not very interesting.
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.
