No Strings Attached

It is impossible to say for sure, but the goal of this movie seems to have been to deconstruct the flimsy cultural assumption that all men want is sex. In this case, the sex is being had by a confused-looking Ashton Kutcher, and it is being had with the gerbil-sized body of Natalie Portman. All she wants to give him is sex, apparently; sex, free of typical female clinginess; glorious nights of bedbreaking sex with her breastless pre-adolescent frame and upsettingly miniature head. It’s every man’s dream!—or so we are given to believe by a pair of wisecracking buddies. One of the buddies may be black or ethnic. They weren’t in that much of the trailer and I don’t feel like watching it again.

Natalie Portman seems to be in a lot of movies at this time. Perhaps her agent has kidnapped the children of a casting director. Let us praise Allah that this agent does not represent Keira Knightley.

After a long and welcome retreat into the world of camera commercials, Kutcher is reminding us all why we fell in love with him in the first place: his lustrous head of shaggy hair. Surely this hair would best be put to use as a source of pleasure to a woman in the prime of her life. Alas, it has been vilely monopolized by a latter-day Circe. I am here referring to that older woman that he married. Who is it again? It’s some post-menopausal ex-actress. She’s like 48. I am really drawing a blank as to who this is. Dame Judi Dench maybe? I can sort of picture her face. Wait, no. That’s that other woman. The blooddrinking Republican congresswoman from Minnesota. God, what a Gorgon she is. She’s not married to Ashton Kutcher. Maybe I’ll look this up later, if I really have nothing to do.

I feel confident that the last scene of this movie is in either an airport or a baseball stadium.

Some review of this movie decried its matter-of-fact raunchiness, in the form of jokes about penises and periods. Indeed, this has become a regrettable recent trend of the rom-com genre. You may have noticed that Katherine Heigl was in a lot of stuff recently. Virtually every sentence out of her fish-like mouth pertained to her “lady parts.” Sweet mother of Christ. Surely the repeated invitation to envision the vagina of Katherine Heigl functions neither as romance nor comedy. It’s enough to make a man stop not watching movies for good.

One day our culture will determine that there is nothing funny about love. This movie has hastened that day’s arrival. Go see it! I didn’t.

rating: ★½☆☆☆

No Strings Attached (2011). dir. Ivan Reitman. Natalie Portman, Ashton Kutcher.