Friendship Plus

With films like "Ghostbusters", "Meatballs" or "I think I`m being snogged by a moose" Ivan Reitman made comedy history especially in the early 80s. In recent years, he has been increasingly active as a producer, including for "Up in the Air" from his Jason Reitman. With the romantic comedy "Friendship Plus" he now wants to prove that he is far from being old news in the director's chair.

For the first time Adam (Ashton Kutcher) tries to win the heart of Emma (Natalie Portman) at 14, but the girl bitterly turns him down. Years later, the two meet again by chance and end up in bed together. Emma, in particular, who likes to claim she has a "peanut allergy to relationships", enjoys the sex and hopes to have a purely sexual friendship with Adam. Adam, who just lost his ex-girlfriend to his father (Kevin Kline), a former TV star, likes this arrangement just fine. Sex with no strings attached - it doesn't really get any better than that. Too bad, though, that real feelings quietly creep into bed with them, and thus "Friendship Plus" seems doomed...

Although Reitman's latest directorial effort is primarily about issue number one, "Friendship Plus" thankfully doesn't degenerate into a cheap sex romp. At its core, the film has become a nice romantic comedy with a few raunchy moments, though these have little negative impact due to the good chemistry that can be felt between the two leads. Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher make for a charming couple worth watching, and they confidently make their way through the not-so-original show. And supporting actors like the great Kevin Kline and Lake Bell also provide some enjoyable moments.

So "Friendship Plus" could actually be a real winner for genre fans. But the film suffers from two factors that have an extremely negative impact on the otherwise positive overall impression. First, there's the runtime, which clocks in at nearly two hours, far too long. The story, which could have easily been told in 90 minutes, was artificially inflated, causing completely unnecessary lengths, especially in the last act. The bigger problem, however, is that Reitman is too uptight in trying to appeal to multiple audiences at once, which results in him letting everyone down. On the one hand, "Friendship Plus" is supposed to be a kind of modern "Harry and Sally" and appeal to such an audience. On the other hand, it also aims to satisfy younger viewers who like things a bit cruder, simpler and raunchier. But the scenes that are then aimed at that audience seem oddly out of place, while also diluting the better moments that score points with inherently clever dialogue wit and amusing ideas.

So, on balance, this romantic comedy is unsurprisingly nice entertainment with good actors that could have been much better if only the director, who is adept in his own right, could have decided on a target audience. Therefore: unfortunately only worth seeing with cutbacks!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp