FILM

USA 2011 109 mins Dir: Will Gluck Starring: Mila Kunis, Justin Timberlake, Woody Harrelson, Patricia Clarkson, Richard Jenkins

If, for some unaccountable reason, you contrived to miss 'No Strings Attached' a few months ago, here it is again with a different glossy cast. Two fuckbuddy flicks in one year? They really do spoil us. Older cinemagoers will observe that underneath the modish raunch is a modern-day tweak of the 'When Harry Met Sally' formula: is it possible for two friends to have sex without love getting in the way? Since there's no danger of Hollywood ever answering that question in the affirmative, what we're left with is a physically attractive if otherwise shallow and thoroughly unappealing couple betraying their few principles. The other increasingly bizarre feature of these films is that while they're engaged in an arms race to come up with the most explicit discussions of sexual activity, full frontal nudity is still forbidden. So it's all talk and no action until Lars Von Trier makes a welcome foray into the genre.

Slumming it after 'Black Swan', Mila Kunis plays a New York headhunter who seduces hotshot editor Justin Timberlake away from LA to take charge of GQ, even though he doesn’t know what a flash mob is. Bonding over a shared hatred of the "bullshit Hollywood cliché of true love," they agree to enjoy lots of commitment-free sex. Each has the mandatory comedy sidekick, though he gets the gay best mate (Woody Harrelson) for a change, while she has a promiscuous mother (Patricia Clarkson). Inevitably, the meagre laughs dry up the moment things turn serious and an Alzheimer's-stricken Richard Jenkins pitches up to deliver the big moral (no, really). And having taken the piss out of crappy music on romcom soundtracks, it ends with a dreary Semisonic song. Shameful. (Robin Askew)

Website www.fwb-movie.com/

Opens: September 9

Copyright Robin Askew 2011