Directed by: Gene Stupnitsky
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Andrew Barth Feldman, Matthew Broderick, Laura Benanti, Ebon Moss-Bachrach
Like director Gene Stupnitsky's Good Boys, No Hard Feelings takes its premise only so far before going sweet and gooey on us. It is as if we are watching two different movies with the same cast and they don't gel. Jennifer Lawrence remains a superior actress who can elevate even uneven material as this, and she carries No Hard Feelings for decent stretches of the movie's running time.
Lawrence is Maddie, a Montauk, Long Island Uber driver and bartender whose car was repossessed and owes back taxes on her home bequeathed by her late mother. A desperate Maddie locates a cryptic ad in the paper placed by a rich couple (Broderick and Benanti) offering a Buick Regal to the person who dates their socially inept son Percy (Feldman). By "dates", they mean take him out and screw his brains out so he can go off to Princeton in the fall a more experienced young man. Oh, and don't tell Percy this is his parents' plan. Maddie finds she can abide these reasonable requests.
She finds Percy is no pushover. He clings to his virginity with a death grip, unwittingly thwarting Maddie at every turn. This leads to slapstick and even a scene in which a buck-naked Maddie beats up three people on a beach trying to steal her clothes while she's skinnydipping with Percy. We think we know where this is all going, and it works out that way, to a point. There is a vague payoff to this romantic comedy setup. Are Maddie and Percy friends, lovers, friends with benefits? We don't know and after No Hard Feelings wheezes to its conclusion, we don't much care either.
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