A fling off the cliff

There's a new trend in romantic comedies and Ivan Reitman's film, No Strings Attached, typifies it. In the chirpy boy-meets-girl situations, there are uncomfortable twists: as is the case when Adam (Ashton Kutcher) and Emma (Natalie Portman), meeting years after they first met as kids in summer camp, decide to be 'friends with benefits', having a strictly sexual relation.

No Strings Attached
Reliance Home Video/Paramount, Rs 599
Rating: **
There's a new trend in romantic comedies and Ivan Reitman's film, No Strings Attached, typifies it. In the chirpy boy-meets-girl situations, there are uncomfortable twists: as is the case when Adam (Ashton Kutcher) and Emma (Natalie Portman), meeting years after they first met as kids in summer camp, decide to be 'friends with benefits', having a strictly sexual relation.

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Portman brings in the character of Emma, a workaholic resident doctor in a hospital who has no social life and is terrified of developing emotional bonds with anyone, a certain 'thing gone wrong'. This makes the film a comedy in dramatic theory (where things ultimately work out). Kutcher, however, clangs violently with his role and we find ourselves waiting for him to suddenly turn into the hormonally surcharged teenager that he was in The 70s Show.

Perhaps a better director like Pedro Almodóvar or the Farrelly Brothers could do a remake and push it in either direction.