Fridae

Sure we’ve heard about the swinging sixties and their infamous sexual revolution but it’s only this decade that we’re starting to see films that take a dig at conventional sexual morals like No Strings Attached and Friends with Benefits. Sure there may have been Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice in 1969, but as outrageous and take no prisoners it was, the satire on relationships shied away at its most important juncture from an endorsement and normalisation of F buddies.

In Friends with Benefits, as with No Strings Attached, today’s filmmakers are finally able to envision a world where even heterosexuals can sing praises of the liberation and guilt-free, emotion blackmail-free vistas that friends with benefits bring. It’s a whole new ball game, a whole new world where people like the ones in this film can admit that there’s nothing wrong with treating the sexual drive that should be relieved just like any kind of physical urge, and preferably done with friends you can get along with inside and outside of bed. No relationships, no emotional blackmail, just fun sex please!

Director Will Gluck (Easy A) takes this concept and tries to make a romantic comedy around it. It’s an audacious creative move that demands respect – how on earth do you subvert a genre rife with concepts like My One True Love, the Meet Cute, the Second Act Breakup, the Sudden Third Act Fairytale Proposal?

It turns out that Gluck does have a keen sense of how to subvert the conventions of the romcom, and how to subvert them to great comedic effect. So while characters played by Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis work out their unusual relationship in this film, they also make genre savvy comments skewering rom-com conventions. This means that while Timberlake and Kunis may not be Oscar calibre actors, their easy and very naughty chemistry, coupled with a smart and irreverent script that succeeds in subverting the romcom genre, makes Friends with Benefits a far superior effort than No Strings Attached.