Love has its Benefits

CAST: Natalie Portman,Ashton Kutcher,Kevin Kline

rating: ***

Emma is a hard-working doctor. She wears her white coat as a badge of honour,and slings her stethoscope on her chest to ward off unwanted emotions. Adam is a good-looking fellow who wants to be a writer,and who is all for getting into feelings all the way in. No Strings Attached has the standard rom com trope of throwing opposites together and getting them to attract,but takes it much further,giving us a film that’s funny and sexy in equal proportions.

Reitman inverts the usual paradigm. It’s the girl who’s commitment-phobic,wanting to keep it basic (which means having sex,lots of it,and at anytime both are free and able to get it together). The guy wants more. The couplings between Adam (Kutcher) and Emma (Portman) are fast and furious,but they are saved from monotony by lashings of humour. She says: we were spooning with our clothes on,and that’s bad. Part of the fun comes from Adam having a vainglorious TV star for a father (Kline) who’s so desperate to fight advancing middle-age that he will leap at anything in skirts (or skimpy bikinis,as the case may be),even if it his son’s ex-girlfriend.

The real pleasure of a rom com is just how well the leads come together: through a series of well-constructed scenes,we are left in no doubt that these two fit right into each other. After the dark,dark Black Swan in which she plays an obsessive ballerina,Portman effortlessly switches gears for this light-hearted fling. She is a pleasure to watch,her intelligence kept just so in view: enough to entertain,not to intimidate. And Kutcher,who’s had a slim acting career till now,finally lucks into a part which he makes completely his own with a great deal of charm and candour.

No Strings Attached energises the tired romantic comedy genre by combining a pair of comely lovers and lines which leap and fizz,except when they have to fight mushy dips. This is the perfect V Day date movie: go,hold hands,laugh out loud.