The Jennifer Lawrence comedy No Hard Feelings feels like a wacky idea only the movies could come up with. A woman who is down on her luck financially sees a job posting by a pair of helicopter parents to date their introverted 19-year-old son to give him some life experience before he goes off to college. But is No Hard Feelings actually based on a true story?
The movie was directed by Gene Stupnitsky, who co-wrote it along with John Phillips. So where did the inspiration come from? Let's take a closer look.
Is No Hard Feelings based on a true story?
No Hard Feelings is indeed inspired by a real-life incident. If you're now wondering where on Earth did someone find out about parents trying to hire someone to date their child: where else but Craigslist?
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Stupinsky says that he was sent the original Craiglist ad by producers Naomi Odenkirk and Marc Provissiero. "I read it and I thought, 'This is wild. Who is the woman that answers this ad?'"
Stupinsky also said that he shared the original post with Jennifer Lawrence, who said, "Gene read the Craigslist ad to me and I died laughing. … A couple of years later he handed me the funniest script I've ever read in my life."
The original Craigslist post was first posted in 2013 and was first reported by The Daily Dot. There were some who wondered if the post was a prank, but Stupinsky and company took the idea and ran with it, obviously changing some of the details for what would become the finished version of No Hard Feelings.
If any one saw a more recent ad on Reddit or somewhere else where parents were offering a car for someone to date their son and thought it was strange, that one is not actually real. That was a part of the No Hard Feelings marketing campaign, though per Newsweek it caused quite the confusion on online platforms.
You can watch No Hard Feelings right now, as the movie is playing exclusively in movie theaters worldwide.
