At this point, it feels like we’ve seen Jennifer Lawrence do it all. She’s been an action hero. She’s been in Academy Award-worthy dramas and even taken home the Oscar herself. And while we’ve certainly seen Lawrence be funny, we haven’t seen her do much straight-up comedy, especially of the raunchy R-rated variety. But maybe that should change after No Hard Feelings.
Critics have seen No Hard Feelings, which tells the story of a young woman (Jennifer Lawrence) who's hired to be the "girlfriend" of a socially awkward teenage boy (Andrew Barth Feldman). While the overall response falls somewhere in the middle of the road, what seems clear is that fans of R-rated comedy will get exactly what they’re looking for, and Lawrence understood the assignment. As our own Eric Eisenberg wrote in his No Hard Feelings review...
As is the case with just about everything she’s in, Jennifer Lawrence is the reason to watch No Hard Feelings, as she has both sharp timing and physical comedic instincts that help maximize a simple shot like Maddie getting around Montauk on a pair of roller blades.
Depending on which critic you’re looking at, the production is either a bad movie that Jennifer Lawrence is still able to shine in, or a good movie entirely because Lawrence is there to do her thing and make it all work. Critic Matt Neglia puts it this way…
No Hard Feelings is carried on the back of Jennifer Lawrence’s natural talent. Without her, this wouldn’t work.
The word “raunchy” usually only appears in reviews for a certain kind of movie, and No Hard Feelings is clearly that sort of movie. It’s a very hard R-rated comedy, a particular genre that, while it has never “died,” we get maybe one of them a year if that. Critic Daniel Howat says that the leading lady shows she’s a natural in this particular subgenre, saying…
Jennifer Lawrence is a perfect fit for this genre and carries it home. It never breaks into anything surprising, but it’s a good time nonetheless.
Most of the reactions from critics would agree that No Hard Feelings doesn’t do a great deal that we haven’t seen in this particular genre before. For some, that’s a point against it. For others, the fact that we’re even seeing a project like this at all is a works in its favor. Deadline’s Todd McCarthy probably sums up the feelings of most. It’s not perfect, but everybody involved, especially the lead star, was willing to go for it, including the wild stuff. He said…
The film is funny, gross, ballsy, lame, daring and uncertain, more or less in equal measure. The leading lady is all of the above, definitely all in and yet always ingratiating; everyone involved was no doubt game for the wild stuff the filmmakers were attempting, but Lawrence, more than anyone else either in front of or behind the camera, knew how to measure and apportion the ingredients in a funny way.
R-rated comedies have a perceived disadvantage at the box office because their rating limits their audience, but we’ve seen many of these sorts of films break out, if only because the audience for them doesn’t get the chance to see them very often. Whether No Hard Feelings will succeed at the box office like The Hangover, remains to be seen. But this one appears to be exactly what fans of that sort of movie are looking for, no more or no less. But perhaps we’ve found a new star of the genre.
Check out No Hard Feelings when it opens in theaters on June 23 as part of the schedule of 2023 new movie releases.
