Dear Hollywood, Give Us More Jennifer Lawrence Comedies, Thanks
I’ve missed Jennifer Lawrence. We all did, literally and figuratively. Lawrence’s new comedy, No Hard Feelings, quietly opened in theaters without much fanfare. But the raunchy R-13 coming-of-age story where Lawrence plays a ‘turned twenty-nine last year’ commitment-phobe hired to bring an incoming Princeton freshman out of his shell by any means necessary is one of the funniest, freshest comedies in a while and incontrovertible proof that we need more Jennifer Lawrence in our lives.
Lawrence is funny as hell. The Academy Award winning actress has played everything from a blue-skinned mutant to a con man’s wife to a rebel who upends a totalitarian government. Lawrence possesses such prodigious talent and exudes incomparable screen presence that she could probably read a technical manual aloud and make it a compelling watch.
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No Hard Feelings is a film that seems like it would be better off in a streaming service. With so many big budget blockbusters competing over a declining cinema viewership that hasn’t been the same since COVID, earnest comedies without special effects or superheroes inevitably, if unfairly, don’t merit the same consideration. And it’s a real shame because No Hard Feelings is the modern equivalent of a John Hughes movie if Hughes directed American Pie.
To be fair, it’s probably better to wait for the film to stream or be available to rent or purchase because the archaic MTRCB made a few awkward, obvious, and irritating cuts to drop the film’s rating to R-13. It doesn’t completely ruin the experience, but considering Jennifer Lawrence, who co-produces, felt that her full frontal nudity was necessary for some scenes, it almost certainly would’ve been so much funnier.
Lawrence has impeccable comedic timing and is so effortlessly hilarious that it’s a complete surprise that No Hard Feelings is only her second comedic outing. But even her role in Adam McKay’s painfully accurate political satire Don’t Look Up was meant to be serious, the lone voice of reason in a world gone mad. But Lawrence is just as good, if not better, playing the funny girl. In fact, the sad state of cinema in a world broken by the pandemic needs funny Jennifer Lawrence.
Lawrence returns to acting after a brief hiatus that saw her get married and focus on humanitarian work. She must’ve needed to slow down, becoming practically ubiquitous after starring in three films a year for four straight years. Jennifer Lawrence went from being a household name to an afterthought in a world with an ever-shrinking attention span that thrives on short form content. No Hard Feelings is an understated way to make a comeback, but it reminds us all of how much we miss her. In fact, Jennifer Lawrence on screen feels like the happy days before COVID, before the world shut down and we all stopped going to the movies.
I’m going to take a break from praising Lawrence to mention a few other things, like Ferris Bueller suddenly making us all feel old. Matthew Broderick plays the dad of introvert Percy Becker (Andrew Barth Feldman), and boy, they’ve managed to make his perennially boyish face look tired and old. Feldman is wonderful and manages to hold his own against Lawrence, and his freshman charm plays off well against her coquettish demeanor. Their relationship is funny, endearing, and despite the unlikely plot, actually believable. Feldman feels genuine and is a hero you can root for, which is a lot more than you can say about many characters in film and television these days.
The truth is, Percy’s parents have probably ruined women for him forever. He’ll probably be in love with Lawrence’s Maddie Barker for the rest of his life. How can he not be? We’re all in love with Maddie the same way every other guy in Montauk is. Yes, she kind of bounces around because she’s afraid of commitment, and one guy (out of very many) just can’t get over her even after she ghosted him. It’s peak Jennifer Lawrence, unburdened with the need for gravitas and emotional conviction, and it’s perfection. Even while she makes us laugh, she manages to make us feel just a little sad, too, letting us feel just how Montauk, New York, isn’t a place you want to stay in for the rest of your life.
It really isn’t fair that the theatrical landscape has changed. When streaming services like Netflix pour millions into blockbusters like Extraction, it makes films like No Hard Feelings less deserving of our hard-earned movie money. But it’s the wrong way to look at the theatre experience. We head to the movies to step away from our lives for a bit and immerse ourselves in other stories, and sometimes it matters when we watch because it’s the catharsis we need at the time.
Television is good, and most definitely, this film deserves your full attention throughout its relatively brisk hour and a half if and when it finally comes to streaming. But bigger isn’t always better, and we don’t always need car chases and explosions or blue-skinned aliens in 3D. No Hard Feelings is an example of how simple stories, even the funny ones (sometimes especially the funny ones) have just as much power to remove us from the mundanity of our daily grind. Thank you, Jennifer Lawrence, we’ve missed you.
