No Hard Feelings was marketed in the most unappealing way – as a bad-taste stick prodded into the ribs of its supposedly puritanical audience; a raunchy comedy in which Jennifer Lawrence attempts to seduce a 19-year-old boy. But rarely do films that call themselves “edgy” ever turn out to be more than mildly immature. Director Gene Stupnitsky’s last film, the Jacob Tremblay-headlined Good Boys, heralded itself as the new Superbad. In reality, it was a good-natured, adorable-to-boot adventure into pre-teen befuddlement. His follow-up is no different: all bark, and far better with no bite. Behind the lazy, shock-tactic humour lies a streak of genuine humanity, something to carry the film beyond mere butts and boobs.
Here’s an Oscar-winning actor, one of the best of her generation, in the role of Maddie, a 32-year-old native of Montauk, a favoured summer retreat of the New York elite. She can’t keep up with the area’s rising property taxes and is now at risk of losing her late mother’s home. Then she stumbles across a personal ad, posted by a wealthy couple (Laura Benanti and Matthew Broderick) and asking for a woman to date their introverted son Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman) before he shoots off to Princeton University. If she’s successful in bringing Percy out of his shell, she’ll take home a second-hand Buick. Maddie thinks, “Why not?” She’s had sex for far more frivolous reasons in the past.
