Likeable Cast, Plot Needed Work

You can't go wrong with a cast of Kutcher, Portman, Kline, and Bell. Very talented and likeable actors. However, the script really let them down. It wasn't really bad, it just wasn't very good. The actors however, lift the movie above the material.

Kutcher is Adam, an assistant on a TV show production. His girlfriend dumps him for his father (Kline). Adam goes into a kind of tailspin but then meets Emma (Portman) who has issues of her own. Emma can't let anyone get close and she and Adam decide to have sex with no strings attached (commonly known as friends with benefits, but that movie title was taken). This works out great until Adam starts to fall in love with Emma. The closer he gets to her, the harder she pushes him away. He eventually gets fed up and starts dating Lucy (Bell). Only then does Emma realize what she gave up.

All this sounds pretty familiar because its been done a million times before in almost every romantic comedy. The thing that makes this better than most is the cast. Kutcher and Portman are hard not to like. They are attractive and funny. They play the roles pretty straight and there is some pretty good chemistry between them. Mindy Kaling, Olivia Thirlby, and Ludacris provide solid support in the obligatory friend/sister roles. The movie would have worked better had the script stayed truer to the characters. They were written as one dimensional antagonists. This type of relationship was handled better and with more realism in Sleeping with Other People.

Still, I liked it. Some of the dialogue was hilarious and I just have a warm spot for Portman.

My memory foam pillow says it can't remember my face. I can tell its lying.