Friends With Benefits (2009)

It’s rare that you can look at a movie title and know exactly what it’s going to be.  For good or for bad, everyone knows what’s coming when this tentative title is uttered.  Friends with benefits.  Fuckbuddies.  It’s dangerous, it’s a terrible idea, it’s something everyone wants, it’s the theoretically easiest and realistically hardest relationship to maintain.  Anyone who can pull it off without anyone getting hurt?  I hate you.  Tell me your secrets.

There’s an element of predictability to this indie film that isn’t as bothersome as it could be.  It takes advantage of the “Well, we were all thinkin’ it, I’m glad somebody finally said it,” mentality.  Oh look, I see a group of friends that’s three guys and three girls, I wonder what’s going to happen.  Lord knows any even number is going to pair off at some point, so yes, let’s see how we get to point B from point A because we know it’s going there and – wait a second, is this going to point C?  what the hell?  I didn’t even know point D was an option!  Rein it in, rein it in!  Don’t lose control, don’t pull a Chasing Amy and suggest an orgy to break the tension and-oh! oh god, okay, well, hmm.  Okay, that’s one solution.

All of the characters in Friends with Benefits are solid.  They all remain in the realm of believability, even when faced with life changing self-revelations, even when the situations push what we’re comfortable accepting as a truth.  Chloe and Owen, our main couple, launch themselves into uncertain waters so we don’t have to… but here’s the thing.  We establish early, too early, that they’re in love.  Early enough that typing it here isn’t much of a spoiler.  Early enough to make us pretty damn sure we know how it’s going to end.  As with most movies, it’s the getting there that’s the interesting part, the part that makes us question the direction and second guess how well we know the characters, how we think they’ll arc and where those arcs will take us.

Speaking of character arcs, you can tell this movie was written (primarily, at least) by a dude.  Not necessarily a bad thing, but surprising.  Brad and Jeff, the two friends of our lead, unexpectedly gain their own stories and own developments while Alison and Shirley neatly wrap up their issues quickly and harmlessly.  In the kitchen, no less.  (For what it’s worth though, I did like Shirley’s story about cooking… and also I like that it focused not only on Chloe and Own, but also – or even especially – on their friends.)  Chloe also does something completely stupid to test Owen’s love for her, which in turn resulted in a couple minutes of confused, unnecessary back and forth.  That one act bugged me more than any other thing in the movie, because no girl I know would ever, ever do something like that.

There are a few loose threads by the end, for example one pair hooked up and never reflected back on it which kind of defeats the entire point of the movie.  The looming summer in France is almost a nonissue.  Most distractingly there’s an otherwise good use of each character speaking with a therapist, but we never get a feel for when everyone is in this therapy session that gives us so many Real World-esque interviews, or what the resolution of it is.  The group therapy didn’t have a point other than to let everyone air their dirty laundry for the audience.  I also resent that girl + girl + beer = lesbian makeout session, but hey, it’s a movie, whatareyagonnado.

Technically this is a pretty well made film.  I really do like the use of split-screen and repeating takes (as formerly seen in Conversations with Other Women), and the division into ‘Chapters’ wasn’t as distracting as I thought it would be.  It did, however, make the movie feel a bit like a many-act play.  Relatedly a good deal of the dialogue delivery felt staged and too well timed.  This is especially true in the first few chapters, thankfully after which everybody seems to wake up, fall easily into their roles and become more casual in their delivery.  The use of a countdown clock and Brad’s list – which has some gems, if you can pause and read it before it flashes by – were clever in their moments, but nothing of similar style was used through the rest of the film.  Looking back it makes these elements seem a little out of place.

Overall though, I did enjoy it.  I was pleasantly surprised at how far out of the typical rom-com-dram (drom?) it ventured.  By expanding the narrative’s perspective to include more than just an A to B love story, which we all know and hate, Friends with Benefits was turned around into something singularly new.

6.5/10