Emma
and Adam are life-long friends who almost ruin everything by having sex
one morning. In order to protect their friendship, they make a pact to
keep their relationship strictly "no strings attached." "No strings"
means no jealousy, no expectations, no fighting, no flowers, no baby
voices. It means they can do whatever they want, whenever they want, in
whatever public place they want, as long as they don't fall in love. The
question becomes -- who's going to fall first? And can their friendship
survive?
Plot
After first meeting at a summer camp as teenagers, Emma (
Natalie Portman) and Adam (
Ashton Kutcher) run into each other over the next few years but never managed to stay in regular contact. Emma is now a
resident at a
Los Angeles hospital and Adam is a production assistant for a musical TV show. Adam's father (
Kevin Kline), a former TV star, has begun a relationship with Adam's ex-girlfriend, Vanessa (
Ophelia Lovibond),
which leads Adam to get drunk and call every woman in his phone seeking
a hookup. The next day, he wakes to find that he text-messaged Emma and
had come to the house she shares with some other residents, including
her best friend Patrice (
Greta Gerwig). Emma leads Adam to her bedroom to retrieve his pants, where the two of them wind up having sex.
Because of both her belief that no two people were meant to be
together forever and the pressures of her job, Emma proposes they have
casual sex with each other before setting some ground rules to prevent
their relationship from becoming too serious. At first things go well,
but then Adam starts becoming jealous of the possibility of Emma being
with another doctor, Sam (
Ben Lawson). Although denying he is jealous, Adam starts presenting her with gifts, which she rebuffs.
Adam becomes more distraught when his father invites him to dinner
with Vanessa on sanoop’s birthday, where they announce they’re planning
to have a baby together. Emma, who accompanied Adam to the dinner,
berates the couple while defending Adam. Adam eventually convinces her
to go out with him on a date on
Valentine’s Day.
Things come to a head when Emma starts becoming too uncomfortable about
being on a date with Adam. Adam tells Emma he loves her, but she grows
angry, telling him he should go out with another woman who 'isn't going
to hurt you'. Adam drops Emma off at her hospital and drives off.
Six weeks later, a script Adam had written for his show is being
filmed, and Adam gets a regular writing job on the show thanks to the
help of Lucy (
Lake Bell),
the top assistant to the show's creator who makes it clear she's
attracted to him. Emma, meanwhile, has become distraught at not being
with Adam, which is compounded by her younger sister Katie's (
Olivia Thirlby) wedding the next day and her widowed mother (
Talia Balsam) arriving with a new boyfriend.
Emma tries calling Adam, but Adam rebuffs her on the phone. Emma
realizes she wants to be with him, and drives down to his home. Adam,
however, arrives home with Lucy, whom Emma takes to be Adam's new
girlfriend. Emma tearfully starts driving back to the wedding. Before
Adam and Lucy can have sex, Vanessa calls Adam—his father is in the
hospital, having overdosed on
Purple Drank.
Arriving at the hospital, Vanessa confesses that she doesn't want to be
with an older man and that she's scared of old people. She dumps her
dog off on Adam and leaves for a party. Adam talks to his father and
chastises him, but tells him he'll call the next day.
On the way out, Adam calls Emma back. Adam angrily tells Emma she
needs to have the conversation she wants in person – which she does;
Emma’s friend and resident Shira (
Mindy Kaling)
noticed Adam's father arriving and called Emma. Adam and Emma
reconcile, and after a morning of eating breakfast, they go together to
Emma’s sister’s wedding. Emma asks, "So, what happens now?" and Adam
silently holds her hand. The film concludes with a montage of events
including Adam's father and Lucy having dinner as a new couple, Patrice
dating Adam's roommate Eli and meeting his same-sex parents, an arrogant
resident who Emma left for Adam telling Shira he thinks they should
date other people (and Shira bluntly telling him she's been seeing other
people during their entire relationship), the resident deciding to
experiment with Shira's gay roommate, Katie going into labor, Vanessa
looking horrified as she's stuck in an elevator packed with senior
citizens, and Adam and Emma being happy together as a couple.
Cast
- Natalie Portman as Dr. Emma K. Kurtzman (younger version portrayed by Stefanie Scott)
- Ashton Kutcher as Adam Franklin (younger version portrayed by Dylan Hayes)
- Greta Gerwig as Patrice, Emma's friend
- Jake Johnson as Eli, Adam's friend
- Cary Elwes as Dr. Metzner
- Mindy Kaling as Shira, Emma's friend
- Kevin Kline as Alvin Franklin, Adam's father
- Chris Bridges as Wallace, Adam's friend
- Olivia Thirlby as Katie Kurtzman, Emma's young sister
- Lake Bell as Lucy
- Ophelia Lovibond as Vanessa, Alvin's girlfriend
- Talia Balsam as Sandra Kurtzman, Emma and Katie's mother
- Guy Branum as Guy, Emma's friend
- Adhir Kalyan as Kevin, Katie's fiancé
- Ben Lawson as Sam, a co-worker of Emma, that likes her
- Matthew Moy as Chuck, guy taking pictures on his cellphone
- Jennifer Irwin as Megan, Adam's boss
- Abby Elliot as Joy
- Nasim Pedrad as Writer
- Mollee Gray as Sari
Production
No Strings Attached is directed by
Ivan Reitman based on a screenplay by
Elizabeth Meriwether titled
Friends With Benefits.
[citation needed] The title was changed to avoid confusion with a
different film with a similar premise that opened on July 22, 2011. The
Paramount Pictures film was first announced in March 2010 as an untitled project. Actors
Ashton Kutcher and
Natalie Portman were cast in the lead roles, and Paramount anticipated a release date of
January 7, 2011.
[3] Reitman said about the premise of
casual sex,
"I noticed from my own kids that with this generation in particular,
young people find it easier to have a sexual relationship than an
emotional one. That is how the sexes deal with each other today."
[4] Principal photography began in May 2010.
[5] By November 2010, the film was titled
No Strings Attached with a new release date of
January 21, 2011.
[4]
Though the timing was coincidental, Portman welcomed the chance to portray a dissimilar character to her role in
Black Swan.
[6]
Release
Theatrical run
No Strings Attached had its world premiere on
January 11, 2011 at the
Fox Village Theater in Los Angeles, California.
[7] The film was released in
3,018 theaters in the United States and Canada on
January 21, 2011.
[2] Its target demographic was women between 17 and 24 years old, and its primary competition was
The Dilemma.
[citation needed]
Interest tracking reflected the target demographic's gaining interest
in the film leading up to its release, and tracking also revealed "good
early awareness" from Hispanic audiences.
[citation needed] The studio predicted for the film to gross in the "mid-to-high teens" millions in its opening weekend,
[8] similar to past romantic comedies rated "R" (restricted to 17 years old and up) by the
Motion Picture Association of America. With
No Strings Attached as the only wide opener in the United States and Canada, it was uncertain if it would rank first at the box office above
The Green Hornet, which opened the previous weekend in first place with
$33.5 million.
[1]
Ultimately,
No Strings Attached beat
The Green Hornet with an opening weekend gross of
$20.3 million. 70% of the audience were women.
[9] According to
CinemaScore,
audiences under the age of 25 gave the film an "A-" grade while
audiences over the age of 25 gave it a "B" grade. Future grosses were
expected to be dependent on the younger demographic.
[10]
The film has grossed
$70.7 million in the United States and Canada and
$77.1 million in other territories for a worldwide total of
$147.7 million.
[2]
Home media
No Strings Attached was released on
DVD and
Blu-ray Disc on May 10, 2011.
[11]
Reception
The film has received mixed to positive reviews. Review aggregator
Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 49% based on reviews from 161 critics and reports a rating average of 5.3 out of 10.
[12] At
Metacritic,
which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from
mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 50% based on
36 reviews.
[13] Rotten Tomatoes reported that critics described
No Strings Attached
as having "moments of warmth and sweetness that are spoiled by a
predictable narrative and a dirty mind." It said, "The pundits say
Portman and Kutcher keep things genial and easygoing, but they're let
down by a middling script that shoehorns in a little too much raunchy
material."
[14]
Critic
David Edelstein described
No Strings Attached
as a film with "a supposedly feminist veneer...(that) never makes the
case for Emma's point of view. It's almost a feminist backlash movie,
and it didn't have to be. There are plenty of reasons for brilliant
young women, especially with the stress of a medical career, to approach
time- and emotion-consuming relationships warily." He expressed
disappointment on overuse of stock characters, as well as Reitman's
"heavy-handed" direction and a story that is ultimately "corny and
contrived and conservative."
[15] A. O. Scott called the film "not entirely terrible...high praise indeed, given that this is a film aspiring to match the achievement of
27 Dresses,
When in Rome and
Leap Year; according to Scott, the film is "
Love & Other Drugs without the disease", a film whose pleasures "are to be found in the brisk, easy humor of some of
Ms. Meriwether's
dialogue and in the talented people scattered around Ms. Portman and
Mr. Kutcher like fresh herbs strewn on a serving of overcooked fish."
[16] Scott considered "the film's great squandered opportunity—and also the source of some of its best comic moments—is that
Ms. Gerwig and
Mindy Kaling
in effect share the role of Emma’s zany sidekick. How can this be? Why
are these two entirely original and of-the-moment performers marginal
players in this agreeable, lackluster picture and not stars of the
year’s greatest girl-
bromance?... To imagine Ms. Kaling and Ms. Gerwig in a remake of
Thelma and Louise or the
Wedding Crashers
is to experience an equal measure of frustration and hope. Why can’t we
have a few movies like that and not quite so many like this?"
[16]
British newspaper
The Telegraph named
No Strings Attached
one of the ten worst films of 2011, saying it is "No Strings Attached
is nominally a raunchy romantic comedy, but Natalie Portman betrays so
little indication of enjoying herself you’d be forgiven for thinking we
were watching deleted scenes from Black Swan."
[17]
Music
The soundtrack includes songs such as "
Bossa Nova Baby" (from 1963), "
I Wanna Sex You Up" (from 1991), the 2010 European-charting "
Bang Bang Bang", the 2010 Australian-charting "
Love Lost", and a cover version of "
99 Problems".
