Review: No Strings Attached

Even though I'm SO not a fan of Ashton Kutcher, I've loved Natalie Portman since The Professional so when the opportunity came to see this, I tucked my personal feelings for AK aside. Honestly, I wasn't expecting much. Just another screwball comedy filled with immature innuendos and gratuitous fluff.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

Definitely an adult movie where you can relate to each character because they're real. Real issues.. real problems.. real feelings.. real experiences. The comedy.. while sometimes over the top.. is truly funny and not written to dumb down the audience.

Yes, it's "boy meets girl" but with a twist.

Emma (Portman) and Adam (Kutcher) meet as children in summer camp. The movie opens with Adam upset that his famous father is divorcing his mother. Emma feeble attempt to console him speaks volumes to her inability to open her emotions.. even at a young age.

Over the years, the two keep running into each other until, in present day, both are in the same place at the same time. But time breeds experiences that breeds maladjustment.

Emma is walled off .. fiercely independent and used to calling the shots. Adam is the sensitive, touch-feely type guy who longs for his father to be anything but the over-aged man trying to restore his youth.

Their No String's Attached relationship begins one night when Adam finds himself hung over in Emma's apartment .. a scene that is completely hysterical.

She wants him without the relationship .. He wants her, basically any way he can get her so he's happy to go along with it until the inevitable happens and feelings start to bubble.

Everything about this movie is on point.. the acting (even by the supporting cast including Kevin Kline and Ludacris) ..  the script .. and the emotions and situations the writer's wanted to convey.

Tim even loved this movie even though he didn't want to. His impression was that Ashton Kutcher finally grew out of his "goofball" characters and represented something real.

I had to agree.

Two thumbs up for this and go ahead.. spring for the nacho chips and hot dog. You won't mind spending the money.