Many college students and young adults are enamored of hook-ups, a term which loosely refers to having sex or making out with a person without any serious intention of keeping the relationship going. For some, this is a way of feeling loved, attractive, and wanted. For others it is just another avenue to savoring pleasure and having fun. Simple attraction ignites desire and bodies come together — without so much as a commitment to text each other the next day. Hooking up is a heart bypass operation for the very young who want to avoid the messiness and the fulfillment of honest sharing and caring intimacy. Ivan Reitman directs the comedy No Strings Attached which presents a glimpse of hooking up and how it works for an attractive young woman and a sweet young man.
Teenagers Emma and Adam meet at a camp and both view themselves as outsiders. She admits to not being a very tactile person but manages to half-heartedly put her arm around him when he cries about the divorce of his parents. Years later they meet in Los Angeles where he is a production assistant on a TV show and she is a medical resident putting in 80-hour weeks at a hospital. Emma is a smart and independent woman who doesn't want a serious relationship and, in fact, doesn't believe in them.
After learning that his ex-girlfriend (Ophelia Lovibond) has moved in with his father (Kevin Kline), a popular TV celebrity, Adam (Ashton Kutcher) gets smashed and winds up nude in Emma's apartment. They have sex in the morning, and he agrees to a hooking up arrangement where they will regularly have sex whenever it is convenient for her to do so. But Emma wants no sweet talk, Valentine cards, cuddling, or other romantic endearments. "Girls just wanna have fun" could be her theme song.
Ivan Reitman directs this comic treatment of hooking up, which can last one night or turn into an ongoing arrangement. Natalie Portman is appealing as an enterprising young woman who admits to having "a peanut allergy to relationships." For her love is the intruder who stifles pleasure and puts couples on edge. Adam, on the other hand, is a romantic who cannot separate his feelings from their ensuing relationship.
Guess who has to change perspective? No Strings Attached could use more focus since there are so many peripheral characters who are unnecessary to the main story. The screenplay by Elizabeth Meriwether does give what it promises in its title: a cinematic look at whether it is possible to have no strings attached.
Special features on the DVD include an audio commentary by director Ivan Reitman; deleted scenes; and three featurettes: "Sex Friends: Getting Together," "Inside the Sassy Halls of Secret High," and "Modern Love: The Do's and Don'ts."
