Of the many movies I watched in 2023 I’m not sure I saw one at odds with itself quite like “No Hard Feelings”. This tonally challenged cringe comedy from director Gene Stupnitsky can never seem to settle on what it wants to be. So much of its energy is spent being pointlessly crass as if desperately trying to earn the ‘raunchy comedy’ tag. But then it will almost randomly shift to a warm-hearted sentimental drama. Unfortunately for it (and us) the two mix together like water and oil.

Jennifer Lawrence plays 32-year-old Maddie Barker, an Uber driver and bartender living in the touristy and pricey Montauk, New York. Maddie is in a financial bind. Her car has been repossessed and she is in danger of losing the cozy house left to her by her late mother due to unpaid property taxes. She has three months to pay or she’ll lose her home. That’s when she spots and answers a rather odd posting on Craigslist.

Allison and Laird Becker (Laura Benanti and Matthew Broderick) are secretly looking for a young woman to help bring their shy and socially awkward 19-year-old son Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman) “out of his shell”. Percy has never been on a date, doesn’t have a driver’s license, and spends most of his time in his room playing video games and practicing on his keyboard. He’s set to go to Princeton in the fall and his parents (for some bizarre reason) believe he needs to drink, party, and most importantly have sex to be ready for college. Brilliant. Whoever completes the “job” gets a Buick Regal as payment.

Desperately needing a car, Maddie takes their offer with little consideration or shame. She quickly begins putting together a plan to seduce the much younger Percy. The ickiness of the premise is hard to get by especially when the movie makes it the centerpiece for much of its humor. Of course when in skilled hands comedy can be used to critique. But “No Hard Feelings” doesn’t feel like it’s critiquing anything.

It takes a few mindless mishaps, but Maddie eventually finds herself growing fond of Percy. Never to the point of ruling out having sex with him, but fondness to some degree. Stupnitsky (who co-wrote the script with John Phillips) throw in a handful of scenes that put aside the unfunny nonsense and tease what the movie could have been. They show a more sympathetic side of Maddie as she realizes her own need to grow up and mature. Sadly there just isn’t enough of that which is a big reason the story’s nice and tidy ending doesn’t work.

“No Hard Feelings” gives us glimpses of heart. But it’s almost always snuffed out by the witless physical comedy or the lazy raunchy gags which often seem to come out of nowhere. And of course it’s hard to shake the film’s premise. It does nothing to challenge or inform. It opens up no conservations and offers no real critique. Instead I was left wondering if this movie would have ever been made if the gender roles were reversed. Would anyone green-light a film about a 32-year-old man tricking and seducing a withdrawn and inexperienced 19-year-old girl? That question offers more food for thought than anything we get in “No Hard Feelings”.

VERDICT – 2 STARS