‘No Hard Feelings’ bursts with chemistry, but misses its mark
By: Kyla Hollenback
Hollywood’s freshest face, Andrew Barth Feldman, makes his silver screen debut in No Hard Feelings as Percy, a 19 year old socially awkward, soon-to-be college freshman. Alongside Feldman’s character is Maddie, a 32 year old bartender slash uber driver portrayed by Jennifer Lawrence. Maddi loses her car to repossession and has to come up with a plan on how she is going to get her hands on a new one ASAP. She stumbles upon a craigslist ad posted by Percy’s parents offering a car in exchange for sex with their 19 year old son, who will be completely unaware of the arrangement. The goal is to help Percy “come out of his shell” before college, and apparently the way to do that is for him to date/have sex? You may be thinking, “What if Percy doesn’t like women?” I wondered the same thing. The parents account for that and explain that apparently they went through his web history to see what kind of porn he watches. They list other things that placate potential audience concerns or plot holes, and that they think justifies this insanely bizarre route they're taking to try to help their son.
Photo: Sony Pictures
This isn’t the first time audiences have seen the “hot girl makes nerd a man” trope and I’m sure it won’t be the last. However, none of the movies I’ve seen that utilize that same storyline have given me as many mixed emotions as this movie did. I was laughing throughout the entire film but it had nothing to do with the ridiculous premise and everything to do with how naturally comedic Jennifer Lawrence and Andrew Feldman are. The two come together in a sort of an opposites attract way, with Lawrence’s boisterous comedy style perfectly complementing Feldman’s subtle delivery. Unfortunately, this movie missed the mark for me in a lot of other ways, and personally I don’t think this movie has enough redeeming qualities that would allow me to overlook the ludicracy that is a 32 year old woman trying to unknowingly seduce a 19 year old so his parents will give her a car.
The 13 year age gap between Percy and Maddie is somewhat of a centerpoint throughout the movie, which only served to creep me out more during scenes where Percy is obviously uncomfortable, says he wants to leave, or resists Maddie’s advances, which happens frequently. In fact, I would say that there wouldn’t be much of a movie if Percy had been less resistant to sleeping with Maddie, or at least it would have been a lot shorter. Maddie comes on strong throughout the entire movie, screaming at Percy to skinny dip in the ocean after he states his discomfort, literally trying to force him to drink alcohol, keeping him from age appropriate activities with friends so she can keep trying to sleep with him, losing her fucking mind when she thinks for a split second that he slept with someone else, the list goes on and on and on.
This movie’s only saving grace was its ability to make me laugh despite the insanely creepy vibes it gave me. Obviously I wasn’t laughing at the scenes where Maddie is pressuring Percy to have sex but there are some very funny moments otherwise, which is why I feel conflicted. I would say that if you feel like you would be able to sit through scenes that are borderline (if not actual) sexual assault, this movie is worth the watch if only for the sake of witnessing its absurdity.
Rating: 2/5