Sometimes, standing in the ticket queue at your local cinema is like standing at a bus stop; you’re waiting ages for one to come along, when two come bombing over the horizon at the same time. Movie theatres follow the same attendant logic, with the Hollywood assumption being: give the chumps even more of what they’re already waiting for – the multiplex double-dip. Such examples include Antz and A Bug’s Life, Finding Nemo and Shark Tale, and The Illusionist and The Prestige. Deep Impact and Armageddon came shooting across our screens together, making the Earth move with their meteor mayhem, while Dante’s Peak and Volcano blew their respective tops within two months of each other.
And so it is, more double dipping, with Will Gluck’s latest raunchy romcom, Friends with Benefits, starring Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake. These friends are late to the party, though, arriving a few months after Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher’s rather similarly themed No Strings Attached* graced our screens to a luke-warm reception. And while Gluck’s film is not a complete disaster, it certainly moves more Earth, and blows a lot harder, than its fellow double-decker friends.
Timberlake plays Dylan, an art director working on a political website in LA, and the target of New York corporate recruiter Jamie (Kunis), who thinks he’s just the perfect fit for a big position at GQ. Tempted by Jamie’s spirited tour of the city as much as the job (though the idea that a flashmob is unheard of to someone under 30 working for a website is preposterous), Dylan leaves behind his west coast roots and moves to the big apple, where he and Jamie become bestest best friends, swapping clichéd pleasantries and, quite often, hilarious barbs while they’re at it. Then one night, after confessing how much they miss the physical part of a relationship while watching a fictional romcom (Jason Segel and Rachida Jones on fine uncredited-cameo form), the two decide to play “tennis”, their coital code word for steamy hot lovin’ sans strings. Will it be a carefree set of New balls, please, or will Jamie and Dylan realise that every game of “tennis” starts at love all?
