No Hard Feelings review: Jennifer Lawrence carries a raunchy comedy that isn't raunchy enough

Almost every month there’s an article somewhere bemoaning the death of the movie star. That giant charming presence on-screen that people will follow no matter what movie they appear in. If No Hard Feelings fails to find its audience, a few of those articles will surely appear. Yet as evidenced by the film and its lead performance, no one should be worried. The movie star is alive and well. Jennifer Lawrence proves, once again, that she can carry a film by the sheer force of her on-screen magnetism and performance agility.

As with many such comedies, No Hard Feelings has an implausible jumpstart to its plot. Lawrence’s Maddie is an Uber driver and bartender in Montauk, Long Island, who faces losing her home to the IRS because she’s desperately behind on her property taxes. Her only chance to make money lies in a job listing from the parents of a 19-year-old virgin requesting a young woman to date their son, Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman). These helicopter parents (Laura Benanti and Matthew Broderick) want to break their son out of his awkward phase and are willing to pay for it. In a scene meant for hilarity, Lawrence, Broderick, and Benanti make much out of emphasizing the word “date” in a multitude of ways. It becomes clear exactly what they are asking Maddie to do. This is a raunchy sex comedy after all. Yet it remains chaste for the most part, just full of sex talk. The film finds its comedy in the myriad, and mostly unsuccessful, ways Maddie tries to seduce Percy.

The screenplay, written by John Phillips and the film’s director Gene Stupnitsky (director of Good Boys, and co-creator of the surprise streaming hit Jury Duty), makes much of the economic disparity between the haves and have nots. Maddie and her friends are year-round Montauk residents who resent the rich folks descending on their town from New York City for the summer. The locals depend on these people to make money yet don’t like how they turn the town into their playground. So Maddie feels justified in taking advantage of these rich parents and their clueless son.

Lawrence is the main attraction and the reason the film works when it does. She’s so committed to the part that she makes this sometimes abrasive, sometimes confounding character utterly beguiling. The film gives Maddie a few psychological backstories to explain away her behavior. Yet it’s Lawrence that the audience is watching and no matter how flimsily the character is written, she delivers. Her comedy is utterly physical with pratfalls galore. She has a way with words, whether she’s brushing off someone with cruelty or opening up to a new friend. Throughout it all she remains highly watchable. The ultimate movie star.