I am usually not a big fan of romantic comedies. Mostly because, well let’s be honest, shit doesn’t work out that way in the real world. People don’t live happily ever after and there isn’t some knight in shining armor that is going to come rescue you from you screwed up, stress filled life. I guess that is why when it comes to going to movies, I rather stick with the explosions and the creatures from another world. Violence is always going to be there…love, not so much. So when my friend said she wanted to see Friends with Benefits, I agreed, but wasn’t jumping out of my seat with excitement. I love movies…figured…I will give it a shot and to be honest it really wasn’t all that bad. Not really what I expected.
You start the movie by meeting two people, Jamie (played by Mila Kunis) who lives in New York and Dylan (played by Justin Timberlake) who lives in Los Angeles. Both of them are at the end of their relationships and being dumped in a crappy way (but what is a good way to get dumped??). They both decided that they are sick of trying to find “the one” and instead they both throw themselves into their careers. Why search for love when it only ends up drop kicking you in the ass and making you feel like ship yet again.
Dylan is an online magazine art director and he has taken his little website strait to the top, and when you do things like that people notice and GQ Magazine noticed. GQ contacts Jamie, who is a head hunter and they ask her to get Dylan to New York and get him to work for them. Jamie, after a number of times, finally convinces Dylan to just come see what the job is about.
Jamie meets Dylan at the airport and after making a spectacle of herself in front of him and everyone at the airport by running around on the baggage rack she takes Dylan off to GQ. Dylan has convinced himself that he is only just looking at his options, but after a day of interviews with the Magazine, Jamie informs him that he has the job…if he wants it.
Still unsold on the concept of leaving LA and moving to NYC, Jamie takes Dylan out to show what NY is really like, more than just what the tourist see, but the locals. Laying onto of a roof late looking at the stars (the only place in NYC that you can see them Jamie claims) late into the night, Dylan agrees to take the job.
Now I don’t know about many of you, but packing up everything you have and moving across country is never an easy thing to do. You leave behind your friends, family and everything you know. You don’t realize how much you miss that local sub shop or that local bar until you are gone.
Dylan starts his job at the company. His right hand man Tommy (played wonderful by Woody Harrelson) after an awkward moment where Tommy thinks Dylan is gay and tries to invite him out to hunt for young boy butts, shows Dylan the ropes.
Since Dylan doesn’t know anyone else in town, he and Jamie begin to develop a friendship and you watch as it grows and soon they are best friends.
Late one night while watching a cheese romance comedy they begin to talk about how long they have gone without sex and how is it that something so simple can create so much turbulence in a relationship and sometimes even destroy it. They decided that they can have sex, just as friends, just when they need it.
But as we all know (although some of us still deny it) you can’t be friends with benefits, someone always gets attached, someone always gets hurt, and while you are screwing your friend, you are not open to a relationship with someone else, because you are not looking.
And that is exactly what happened with them….they stopped looking, the relationship started to get complicated.
Realizing what was happening; they pulled back from each other and started to try to see other people. Jamie had more look then Dylan (who again threw himself into his job to escape the pain and reality of losing someone that he liked). Although they did manage to remain close friends, Jamie started dating a doctor. Everything seemed to be going so well, until the night after they had sex for the first time.
Like all men, the next morning the doctor tried to sneak out of Jamie’s place, only to run into her returning with coffee. Jamie confronts him and realizes that the guy was a dick (like 99.9% of men out there) and that he only wanted to sleep with her, add another notch on his bed and he would do anything or say anything to get to that point and be gone quicker than ice in a cup on a HOT summer day after.
Seeing how upset Jamie is, Dylan invited her to come with him to LA for the 4th of July weekend to stay with him and his family. Jamie agrees, reluctantly, and they head out.
Dylan’s family (sister, nephew and father) are thrilled to meet Jamie since he has never brought a girl home before. Dylan’s sister, Annie (played by Jena Elfman) can see how perfect the two are for each other, but when she confronts Dylan about it he goes off on Jamie saying the girl has too many problems. Unfortunately, Jamie heard everything. Crushed that Dylan would think that of her, she leaves early and heads back to NYC without an explanation. Dylan has no idea what happened and tries to contact Jamie again and again. Leaving voicemail and texting but as a man...he fell short in realizing that may he had done something to piss her off. However, she should have just told him, made it easier instead of avoiding him while he runs around lost and blind.
Jamie refuses to speak to Dylan until another company contacts her…asking her to get Dylan to be there Art Director. Forced to contact him again she does, and it is only then that he realized that she overheard him and that he crushed her.
Yet he still doesn’t try to fix it. He lets things go. Until his father (played by Richard Jenkins) comes out to visit. His father tells him a story about a girl he loved, before Dylan’s mother, and that he was just too young and stupid to realize how perfect she was and he let her get away. He tells Dylan that because he never got over his young love, he was never able to move on completely and it played a role in the ending of his relationship with Dylan’s mother.
Finally a light clicks on in Dylan’s head. He realizes that Jamie and he are perfect for each other and that every relationship takes work and nothing in life is easy. He runs off to finally try to win her back. And of course being a romantic comedy….he does. SURPRISE! Haha
The movie is funny and there is laughing. But honestly, it was about 20 minutes to long. We both started to get anxious, waiting for him to wake up and smell the coffee. Seriously! It’s a romantic comedy, we ALL know that eventually he is going to realize that he messed up and make some big gesture to show how sorry he is and how she is going to take him back. It is the same in EVERY ONE. So why they dragged it out and made the movie longer than it needed to be I will never know.
Yes it is funny, yes it is cute…NO it is not worth spending $10.50 per ticket plus popcorn and drinks to see. SERIOUSLY! Not that amazing. You can wait until it comes out on DVD and rent it from Netflix’s one night when you have seen everything else under the sun. There are not big surprises in the plot. Nothing that makes you go…OH! And lastly, the acting, although a cute movie, Dylan at least didn’t draw you in to the movie, or at least me. I knew I was sitting in a theater the whole time. And I did start checking my watch about 30 minutes before the end. MY BUTT STARTED TO HURT!
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