3.5/5 Stars

Any romantic comedy with Ashton Kutcher as a lead is bound to be cute, funny and a crowd-pleaser – mostly because he’s gorgeous, witty and sensitive. So it came as no surprise to me that I liked No Strings Attached, Kutcher’s latest film that also featured Natalie Portman. 

What I wasn’t expecting, however, was the film’s plot line to break from most traditional romantic comedies – traditional relationship roles were reversed. Instead of Kutcher playing a strong and stoic male lead and Portman the over-emotional wreck, the film centered on Portman’s fear and avoidance of love, while Kutcher strove for something more than fulfilling sexual needs.

Both used each other for sex without the structure of an emotional relationship being involved, a social concept Hollywood has typically shied away from. Most romantic comedies either have the characters in a relationship or in the pursuit of a relationship – most do not break the rules of film plots by taking a relationship out of the picture entirely. For this reason, I give kudos to the film for its daring move.

As with most romantic comedies, you know how No Strings Attached is going to end 20 minutes into the plot. But what makes some films stand out from the rest is the journey to the finale and not the finale itself. Unfortunately, this was one film that lacked that incredible journey.

The majority of the film was a huge “she loves me, she loves me not” argument and lacked real substance between the beginning and the end of the plot. There were scenes that were funny and scenes that made me tear up, but instead of building up emotion and anticipation, many scenes fell flat.

Contrasting characters were what saved the film from the lapses in plot-building. This movie introduces a lot of characters very quickly, but their individual plot lines managed to mesh together to add a new level of romance and a new level of comedy to the base Kutcher and Portman provided.

In contrast to Kutcher and Portman’s characters was the relationship that developed between their best friends. In that relationship, the couple danced, had romantic dinners and was the fairytale couple all around. In the meantime, Kutcher and Portman were getting it on like rabbits, the antithesis of the fairytale couple. 

Kutcher’s father in the film – played by Kevin Kline – also tied characters and plot lines together in a cohesive way. Kline plays a perpetual Hollywood playboy who Kutcher can’t decide whether to love or hate. Kutcher pushes his irresponsible father away, and at the same time, takes care of him when he needs it. Again, not a novel concept for romantic comedies set in Hollywood, but the two pulled it off by combining their wit.

While Portman played a convincing role as an unemotional woman running from love, I was a bit disappointed in her for choosing the role. After the acclaim she received from her last film, Black Swan, which really stretched the wings of her acting abilities, deciding to follow it up with No Strings Attached just seems like an uninspired choice.

This film couldn’t have taken near as much emotional effort to act in as Black Swan. I wanted to see greatness follow greatness. She did not do a poor job in No Strings Attached, but it certainly did not realize her acting potential.

Along the same lines, this film spent a lot of time advertising on television and in the media before release. Generally, when films do this, they want to create hype in their audience base because the film is not good enough to yield large audiences on its own. 

In the case of No Strings Attached, which did extensive advertising, I think their reasoning was because it was a good film, but not Oscar-worthy. With ticket sales declining, I predict more generic romantic comedy films will have to resort to pre-release hype to garner revenue.