Friends with Benefits: Obvious Expectations and The End

The film "Friends with Benefits", or FWB as we've been casually abbreviating the "relationship" that became a prominent part of the 21st Century ,ended up to be too predictable.

It's the kind of movie that everyone knows in the first 5 min how it's gonna end - because, as most of us - adults, know - friends with benefits either do NOT work or they DO work. Friends with benefits either become strangers or they become - a couple. There is no perfect "middle", as much as many of you out there hope it to be. This "relationship" has become to exist in our vocabulary not long ago - most likely at the same time as the slogan "Make love, not war" was created.


And in case you don't now what friends with benefits is, here are a few definitions by Urban Dictionary:

Two friends who have a sexual relationship without being emotionally involved. Typically two good friends who have casual sex without a monogamous relationship or any kind of commitment.

Friends by day, sex partners by night.

A safe relationship, that mimics a real partnership but is void or greatly lacking jealousy and other such emotions that come with a serious relationship.

A physically involved relationship, where both partners enjoy some comforts of sitting on the fence between serious relationship and simple friendship.

Any realtionship that can only be categorized as being between Friends and Partners, also refered to as More then friends.

Two people break up over complications of a serious relationship and decide to continue their relationship a step down, but not far enough as to have physical boundaries.

And this movie is just another way to remind us that friends, actually, are not supposed to sleep with each other. It complicates things, OK?! It makes it awkward for everyone else in the circle of friends, OK? It screws up your own self, OK?! And at the end - usually - it ends badly, OK?! And having sex is not the same as "playing tennis" (an inside joke...see below)

But Will Gluck's movie is rather optimistic, but not without a drama, of course. 

Gluck wanted to show a happy ending to what most of us think as an impossible thing to do - have uninhibited sex with a close friend and then exchange stories with him/her on the dating with the other people...Don't you think it's rather gross? Well, Justin Timberlake's and Mila Kunis' characters don't seem to think so. They go into this kind of "set-up" on one evening over some beer and a movie when both of them reveal that they miss having mindless, no-strings-attached, and no-drama sex.

And despite the fact that both of them are in their late twenties, they still believe and want us to believe that its' actually possible - to have a regular sexual relationship with a best friend and not get attached. 

 I mean, they are best buddies - they seem to match in everything they do: food and drinks, entertainment, attitude to life, perceptions and anticipations, values and morals, lifestyle and hobbies - and - they match in sex. Isn't it a road to self-destruction, to believe that you can be both a great friend and a great lover and NOT fall in love?

I should, though, mention, that despite the fact that it's a light comedy, Justin Timberlake still manages to show a very wide range of his acting abilities (little could be said about the perky Kunis, who might be cute, but is still about to show her range...) "Alpha Dog"  might have put Timberlake in the ranks of Hollywood's talented young actors, but this movie moved it a bit further down the list to the likes of A(-) - list of actors.

Oh, yeah, and the movie is set up in a perfect New York City - as in the city that most of us would NOT recognize, but it's definitely pleasant on the eye and it does make one want to move to NYC tomorrow... (At least I did!)

You can actually follow the feedback and review of the movie on Twitter, just look for #FWB.