This article contains spoilers.
Jennifer Lawrence’s new film No Hard Feelings is a modern-day feminist sex comedy, enlivened by ribald humour and occasional gross-out moments. But it’s also a crucible for working through a range of cultural anxieties dogging both romantic comedies and the wider popular culture.
Lawrence’s promiscuous, in-your-face bartender and Uber driver Maddie (32) is hired by wealthy helicopter parents to seduce their nerdy virgin son Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman) before he starts college to enhance his confidence and social prospects. In this film, sex is a site of juvenile innuendo (see the title) and also of authentic emotion, as Percy’s physical vulnerability leads to bonding.
No Hard Feelings shares common ground here with several other recent tales of coupledom in making eroticised physical closeness apparently not a big deal yet at the same time the biggest of deals. However, the movie does offer a novel take even on the recent trend.
The importance of sex
In my work as a film academic, I have suggested that sex and romance have been culturally separated, if not opposed in different ways, throughout history.
After the 1970s, sex was notionally absorbed into romance but its actual contours were downplayed in mainstream cinema. Now, in an era where sex itself has become a relatively scarce commodity, the very act has gained elevated currency.
While sex is more valuable, contemporary representations of it retain their anti-romantic messiness. This is partly as a reaction against the rise of sterile digital cultures, like the screens to which Percy and his friends are often glued. Sex is real, untidy and essentially human while life online is clean but cold.
The film is geared towards Percy finally having sex: a moment, his parents hope, will bring out hidden qualities in him as he embarks on a fresh chapter in life. When it finally happens, in true gross-out, teen romantic comedy-style, it’s not sexy and Percy ejaculates instantly on contact with Maddie’s bare thighs.
What is striking is that this exchange, as touching as it is gently humorous, is still accorded greater significance than the traditional cultural trappings of romance. Sex is the climax, everything else a journey to it.
Take the hackneyed dating experiences parodied in a hyperactive montage midfilm. Or even the “polished” sexuality of Maddie’s passionless, over-rehearsed lap-dance, which just leaves Percy disconcerted. None of this “romance” is taken seriously even if it bonds them more.
Friends with(out) benefits?
Maddie and Percy’s awkward exchanges don’t lead to dating but ultimately to friendship.
Yet the class and generation-crossing aspects of their relationship, and its foundation in physical intimacy, mean it retains something of a romantic aura just the same. This ambiguity is a phenomenon more commonly seen in buddy films about same-sex characters, such as I Love You, Man or Superbad.
Such an ending is not really in line with what Percy’s parents had in mind. They are pushing him to grow up through sex, which is part of their idea of being a “successful” adult, but it’s not Percy’s.
The casting of Matthew Broderick as Percy’s dad, in homage to the 80s film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, underlines the issue of generational clash. In both films, a car is deliberately wrecked, symbolising revolt against adult ideas of accomplishment.
That such ideas are also couched in economic terms highlights the equal importance of wealth dynamics in the film.
Maddie’s motivation for turning to sex work is to avoid eviction from her late mother’s house in Montauk, Long Island. This aligns quite self-consciously with the anti-gentrification strand of romantic comedies, including You’ve Got Mail, Two Weeks Notice and Obvious Child.
No Hard Feelings’ ending minimises its social problems in generically classic utopian style. Maddie raises the money to save her house then decides to sell it at a bargain price to friends in any case.
But at least it steers clear of a Jane Austen resolution, which would see the ragged beauty smoothly absorbed into capitalist ideology through union with the firstborn of the landed gentry. Instead, real connection and friendship is championed. A refreshing change in a film that tips its hat at every turn to the romances and comedies that came before it.
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Mary Harrod does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
