NO HARD FEELINGS (2023) ***

Strapped for cash, Maddie (Jennifer Lawrence) answers an odd online ad placed by a wealthy couple to “date” their awkward virginal teenage son Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman) in exchange for a car.  When Maddie sets out to seduce him, she is surprised that Percy actually wants to get to know her first before they seal the deal. 

I’ve long admired Lawrence for her fearlessness.  Her performance in mother! is among my all-time favorites.  In No Hard Feelings, she gives us one of the most memorable nude scenes in recent history.  Things begin innocently enough with her and her young suitor skinny-dipping when some drunk teens decide to steal their clothes.  Up until now, we have only seen her bare back and shoulders.  However, when the kids begin to run off with their clothes, she comes storming off the beach full frontal and proceeds to kick their ass.  It’s not only one of the best nude scenes in the past few years, it’s also one of the best fight sequences. 

Like the best raunchy comedies, there are genuine character moments here that help endear our heroine to the audience.  She just wants to save her house.  Since she is a local in a resort town, the rich assholes who summer there are driving up the property taxes, which is relatable to me as someone who lives in a summer town year-round.  That sentiment is a nice reworking of the traditional slobs vs. snobs mentality of many ‘80s comedies. 

The fact that you have a woman in her thirties hanging out with a teenager also opens up some funny generation gap comedy.  One of the many highlights is when Lawrence crashes a high school party and the parents of the teen try to kick her out.  (“Do you think my son would have a party without our consent?”)  While the film follows the well-worn path of these kinds of sex comedies (it becomes more predictable in the third act once the kid eventually catches on that his parents put her up to it), it offers plenty of laughs along the way. 

Lawrence’s performance also helps to make it memorable.  Even if she didn’t have a nude fight scene, it would be still worth watching just for the scenes of her trying to pick up the hopelessly clueless kid.  Feldman is quite good too and the chemistry between the pair is genuine.  Because of that, No Hard Feelings is hard to resist.