On the brink of losing her home, Maddie finds an intriguing job listing: helicopter parents looking for someone to bring their introverted 19-year-old son out of his shell before college. She has one summer to make him a man or die trying.

‘No Hard Feelings’ is a sex comedy about a down on her luck Uber driver who responds to an advert to date a shy 19 year old to boost his confidence ahead of going to college. In return, his parents will give her a Buick Regal, which would be quite timely as her last car has just been repossessed. While there haven’t been many good recent comedy movies, this does come from Gene Stupnitsky whose last film was one of the better recent comedies in ‘Good Boys’, and he has Jennifer Lawrence in the leading role to boot. The premise is deliberately uncomfortable but I felt it worked largely down to the good work of Lawrence and Andrew Barth Feldman (who plays the 19 year old Percy), and a script that doesn’t shy away from the inherent awkwardness of this setup.

I really enjoyed ‘No Hard Feelings’ and laughed pretty consistently throughout, with the script finding a good balance between slapstick, social commentary and sharp dialogue. Jennifer Lawrence is pretty much always watchable and she throws herself into this role with the same gusto as her performances that have garnered Oscar nominations. Undoubtedly, as some commentators have pointed out, if you swapped genders this film doesn’t get made, but I think it works because it leans into the cringe and plays up the arrested development of Lawrence’s character. Cringe comedies are meant to be awkward, not morality tales.

Like most comedies, not everything works, but ‘No Hard Feelings’ is much more hit than miss for me and it’s good to have an enjoyable summer comedy out at the cinema just now.

Rating: 4/5

Directed By: Gene Stupnitsky

Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Andrew Barth Feldman, Matthew Broderick, Laura Benanti, Natalie Morales, Scott MacArthur, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Hasan Minhaj, Kyle Mooney and Zahn McClarnon

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt15671028/