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Reviews
Friends (with Benefits) (2009)
Sex comedy with raunch and heart
I recently saw this movie at the Sacramento Film and Music Festival, and thought it was great!
The movie centers on a group of six friends in their early 20s, and the various sexual combinations you can get from three women and three men. (One kind of silly distraction: of the six main actors, all of whom were good, one looked like Melissa Joan Hart, one looked like Mark Paul Gosselaar, and one looked like Adrian Grenier.)
I went back and forth on whether the touting of the movie as "A novel with moving pictures" and the use of chapter headings with cutesy titles was annoying or helpful, but I think I liked it, because the movie isn't a straightforward romantic comedy. It's composed of bits and pieces-- confessional-type scenes with a therapist ("Dick Weed"), split screens, music montages (the main character is in a band), flashbacks (the requisite senior prom), a fast scrolling of one character's rules for living. Plus plenty of talking about sex and then sex and then dealing with the aftermath.
Sure, there were some clichés, but the movie felt surprisingly fresh. Plus, the two leads had great chemistry. One part I didn't feel was as successful was the treatment of parents--only one set of parents makes it on screen, and it's an overbearing father pressuring his son. That relationship didn't seem to have the nuance and creativity of the friends' relationships.
For a low-budget movie, it looked and sounded lush (nice music, too).
If you have the chance to see Friends (with Benefits), I'd highly recommend it. Just maybe go with someone who you'll be comfortable sharing a raunchy evening with.