Watch: No Strings Attached

• Director: Ivan Reitman
• Writers: Elizabeth Meriwether, Michael Samonek
• Stars: Natalie Portman, Ashton Kutcher and Kevin Kline
• Release Date: January 2011
• Run Time: 108 min
• Genre: Comedy, Romance

A guy and girl try to keep their relationship strictly physical, but it’s not long before they learn that they want something more.

What is most fascinating about this movie is that it’s a raunchy rom-com from the female perspective. Knowing that the film was written by a woman prior to my viewing it made the nuances jump out to me. It’s those nuances and that perspective that make the film enjoyable. No one scene or moment merits more then a minor chuckle but the characters themselves expand and grow as the story unfolds. It’s hard to care about the leads at first because there’s no set up or real establishment of character. Then, they kind of grow on you even though neither really rang true for me in any real world sense. Natalie Portman is great as many would expect but Ashton Kutcher did a fine job as well. I’ve seen others criticizing his performance but I think that’s based on a pre-determined hatred of him rather than on his work. The supporting characters were VERY weak and useless save for the father character played by the wonderful Kevin Kline. Overall, better than I was expecting it to be.