★★

Having been one of the last decade’s most prolific Hollywood stars, Jennifer Lawrence hasn’t half lain low in recent years. Between 2011 and 2017, Lawrence averaged three major releases per annum. Since 2020, the Time 100 listed Oscar winner hasn’t even knocked out one a year. What could coax such a talent back to Tinseltown? In 2019, it was the promise of working with Adam McKay. In 2022, the opportunity to try a hand at film production itself appealed. As for 2023’s No Hard Feelings, which hit cinemas on Wednesday, it was simply the funniest script the star had ever read. Hm.

It is, true be told, hard to imagine even those whose buttons the film pushes considering No Hard Feelings remotely close to the upper echelons of cinematic funny. Take the title: a wry pun that’s too immature to be smart and too smart to embrace the immaturity. For the most part, the fault here is tonal. No Hard Feelings has better qualities than crass promotion might have promised but suffers for its attempts at being a great deal of different things to different ends, while somehow not quite succeeding in nailing any of them.

The film offers, for instance, a revisitation for the noughties sex comedy, only without a whole lot of sex or, it must be said, comedy. The film is too a potent family drama, yet it’s a drama that sidelines the actual family for 90% of its runtime. As a cherry on the top, No Hard Feelings is even a surprisingly politically literate class commentary – but one without anything but the most superficial of comment to make.

Lawrence is, at least, excellent. As stranded, semi-broke millennial Maddie, the star’s effortless comic flair bursts from a decade of screen solemnity. It’s always been there. An ocean of red carpet memes and chat show sound bites serve testament to that. Even in the face of galling narrative ickiness, Lawrence largely prevails. It’s no mean feat in a film that asks her to sell grooming and unabashed sexual coercion as being anything other than entirely lacking in moral merit. Certainly, the film fails the gender-switch test. One can only imagine the ways a contemporary film might be decried were a thirty-two year-old man depicted coaxing a nineteen year-old female into sex on the promise of a post-coital Buick Regal.

Such is the film’s legitimate premise. An OG resident of East Hampton hamlet Montauk, Maddie bridles annually at the Summer descent of wealthy New Yorkers into the neighbourhood. As rising taxes threaten to evict her from the home she inherited from her mother, Maddie finds herself in desperate need of funds. That’s even before her car is repossessed by a blighted ex. It’s worth noting here that Maddie part-times as an Uber driver. A rogue Craigslist ad – based on a real life listing – may, however, be her savour. Wanted: young woman to “date” younger, introverted virgin with overprotective parents. ‘Date him hard’. Should Maddie be able to coax said teen into the bedroom, and thereby loosen him up for his first year at Princeton, the family’s spare car is hers.

To his credit, Broadway youngster Andrew Barth Feldman proves a worthy foil. In the hands of this one-time Evan Hanson, gawky Percy is far more than target practice for a sex predator. Sure, he’s a geeky introvert but, in contrast to his parents’ fears, Percy is kind of ok with that. It’s little surprise to find that Maddie has as much to learn from Percy as he her. His pubescent immaturity is nothing on her limited emotional development. There’s a warmth to the pair’s burgeoning friendship that belies the more brazen inclinations of the film around them. While a nude car chase amuses, it’s the scene after, in which Maddie dabs ointment on Percy’s anxiety rashes, that shines.

T.S.