The premise of Gene Stupnitsky’s new comedy Motors No Hard Feelings is at least a little lewd, if not entirely lewd. Montauk millionaires Laird and Alison are looking for an attractive woman in her early twenties to devirginize her socially clumsy Princeton-bound son Percy through an online advert. In return for this service, they give some prostitutes a not-so-new car.
Maddie, played by Jennifer Lawrence, is a lifelong Montauker who increasingly resents wealthy people taking over her town. At 32, she’s a little too old for the job, but she’s a knockout fighter, played by Lawrence as mentioned above, and has a slick sales pitch.
Capricious and licentious, Maddy is a bartender and ride-hailing driver, not a professional escort, but her car has been seized and if she can’t take customers, she won’t make enough money to pay the lien tax. do not have. in the house he inherited from his mother. assigned to “date When she dates nineteen-year-old Percy, who was cute as a puppy but initially very recessive, she chases her prey with an aggression that initially displeases the boy. (He threatened her at one point.)
The trailer for the film has sparked outcry in some sex-unfriendly social media circles. But the film itself doesn’t inspire congressional hearings and deals with Hook in a way that raises eyebrows. When Maddie actually starts dating Percy, she begins to like him. And as she acts on her instructions to “get him out of her own shell,” he persuades her to think about why she’s dead end in her Montauk in the near future. do. If you don’t think this is coming, you don’t know Hollywood.
The film doesn’t divide the difference between a crude sex farce and a double personal growth study, and is self-satisfyingly categorized between the romantic comedy subgenres. It amiably alternates between mundane depictions of introspective intimacy and eccentric set-plays that ostensibly raise the bar. When interrupted while skinny-dipping with Percy, Maddy jumps out of the ocean and strips down the townspeople who are trying to steal her clothes.
Given the confidence and charm of the lead actors, one might argue that the film doesn’t need that. But again, Hollywood. Either way, Lawrence is a consistently hot on-screen presence, and her role allows her to run through her biggest performance hits, so to speak. She’s goofy sexy, her eyes wide open with poignancy, and she maintains an undeniably beaming smile. Andrew Barth-Feldman as Percy, for the most part, evokes the character’s clumsiness on a quieter note, but the broader nerdy moments remind him of a young Martin Short. Matthew Broderick and Laura Benanti appear, playing the odd parents. But Natalie Morales, Scott MacArthur, and Zahn McLarnon as Maddie’s fellow townsfolk, who bring the heroine a wry working-class unity, have some of the best parts of the film.
no resentment
Rated R for language, themes, sexuality, and naked fistfights. Running time: 1 hour 43 minutes. at the theater.
