There are a number of good reasons why so many comedians feel on edge in the age of cancel culture and instant outrage, so there were no surprises to be found when raucous R-rated comedy No Hard Feelings generated a storm in a teacup when its synopsis began making the rounds.
Conveniently forgetting that its setup was the entire driving force behind the movie, pearls were clutched nonetheless when it was discovered Jennifer Lawrence’s 30-something character would be putting the moves on a rich couple’s 19 year-old son in order to bring him out of his shell in more ways than one.
Accusations of an “uncomfortable” age gap and notions of “grooming” were bandied about, with director and co-writer Gene Stupnitsky hitting the nail squarely on the head when he addressed the backlash by asking a simple question: “There are so many movies where the male lead is much older than the female lead, and TV shows especially, and nobody bats an eye. So what’s the difference?”
The short answer is “not much, if anything at all,” not that it mattered when No Hard Feelings was greeted fairly tepidly by critics. Naturally, Lawrence’s all-in and hilariously committed performance won the majority of the plaudits, and it did turn a decent profit at the box office after netting almost $90 million, but it’s not quite a film that lives long in the memory after the credits come up.
Then again, given that FlixPatrol has revealed No Hard Feelings as the number one most-watched feature on both Amazon and iTunes among users in the United States, long-lasting status as a cult favorite could be lurking just over the horizon.
Published: Sep 1, 2023 01:59 am