No Hard Feelings (2023)

We enjoyed this raunchy, slapstick comedy in which Jennifer Lawrence's Maddie, who desperately needs to make a buck, answers an ad from parents who want someone to "date" their naive son the summer before college. Lawrence and Andrew Barth Feldman, who plays the son, are close to the 32 and 19 year old ages of their characters.

Laura Benanti and Matthew Broderick are hilarious as the helicopter parents as is Natalie Morales as Maddie's friend, supported by a cast with too many noteworthy players to mention.

Directed by Gene Stupnitsky from a script co-written by him and John Phillips, the pace flags a bit here and there but not enough to matter. A real Craigslist ad inspired the movie and Lawrence was Stupnitsky's first choice to play Maddie. And in one pivotal scene, she did not use a body double nor CGI. You'll know what I'm talking about when you see it.

I'm streaming the soundtrack by Mychael Danna and Jessica Rose Weiss on Apple Music as I type. In addition there are plenty of great songs, listed here, including a version of Hall & Oates' Maneater, sung on camera by Feldman, whose credits include the title role of Dear Evan Hansen on Broadway when he was 16.

Lawrence was last blogged for Causeway, Morales for Language Lessons, Stupnitsky for his directing debut Good Boys, and Danna for The Addams Family (animated-2019). Though I've mentioned Broderick's cameos in Rules Don't Apply and Manchester by the Sea, I last wrote about my favorites of his film work in Tower Heist. Besides stage work, Feldman has been in two other features, including White Noise, which we did not like. Benanti has had dozens of movie and TV roles, one Tony win, and five more nominations to her credit. She's also a talented impressionist and appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert quite a few times as Melania Trump. This is Phillips' second screenplay (he wrote the first on his own). Weiss has worked on many projects as composer, co-composer, and various positions in the music department.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics are hard on this, averaging 71%, while its audiences' average of 87 demonstrates that they're feeling it. Jack and I rented it on August 29 on iTunes/Apple TV.