Film Review: No Hard Feelings doesn't impress... but at least there's a good musical number

Andrew Barth Feldman and Jennifer Lawrence in No Hard Feelings

• No Hard Feelings 
• ★★☆☆☆

No Hard Feelings (16s) stars Jennifer Lawrence as Maddie, a native of the increasingly gentrified town of Montauk, Long Island. Unable to pay the taxes on the family home, the 30-something Maddie agrees to an offer made by Laird (Matthew Broderick) and Allison (Laura Benanti): that she date, for a fee, their shy 19-year-old son Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman) during the summer before he goes off to Princeton.

Written by John Phillips and Gene Stupnitsky, with Stupnitsky directing, No Hard Feelings is an unusual (given the age difference between the stars) take on the classic rom-com, with Maddie a hard-boiled cynic when it comes to commitment, and Percy a gauche, wide-eyed romantic. 

Jennifer Lawrence in No Hard Feelings.

But if the age/gender reversal is a little different, the plot is pretty straightforward when it comes to observing the rom-com’s traditions — not an issue in itself, of course, because we all have our expectations of what a rom-com should deliver, but one of those expectations is that the leads will share a chemistry that is noticeably absent here.

The always likeable Jennifer Lawrence works hard, but the disjointed script is off-kilter tonally, and the genuinely comic moments are few and far between.

On the plus side, there’s a showstopping version of Hall & Oates’ 'Maneater'. So there’s that, at least.

(cinema release)