At a loss Director: Will Gluck Cast: Mila Kunis,Justin Timberlake,Woody Harrelson You have seen this film before,in various versions of that one question: Can a boy and a girl ever be friends? More recently,you saw it in a movie with a virtually similar plot and an exact same tagline No Strings Attached,tagged Friendship has its benefits. Unfortunately for Friends With Benefits,for whatever it was worth,No Strings Attached starring Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher knew far more to do with the basic plot of two people deciding to keep their relationship purely about sex than just leaving it at purely about sex. Despite all the time Kunis and Timberlake spend out of clothes and in the bed,and despite the time they spend talking about the same,this Will Gluck-directed version that starts off with a spark drags beyond half point,with a genuinely charming Kunis weighed down by a haplessly insipid and unconvincing Timberlake. Between the trailer and the final version,though,there has obviously been some heavy Censor snipping. When the film decides to go further,it doesnt venture beyond giving Jamie (Kunis) a missing father and Dylan (Timberlake) a missing mother. Jamies mother is virtually absent and has no permanent home,Dylans father lives in a big,warm house next to the beach in Los Angeles. A cute child sold on Jamie completes the cliches of a rom-com that started out,of course,mocking all of them. Dylan does take his time before that dash across the city to be by Jamies side. The film makes this longer with sub-plots that dont matter,jokes that dont work and a Timberlake who cant move it. Friendship has its benefits. But not so many benefits.
