Even unfiltered Jennifer Lawrence can’t save the “bride”

Jennifer Lawrence is funny. Of course, she made a name for herself as an actress in independent dramas (Burning plain – the edge of loneliness, frosty winter – winter’s bone), in blockbusters and franchises (trilogy The Hunger Games, X-Men 2.0), in unnerving films that fall somewhere between horror and thriller (Hates – House at the end of the street, Passengers) and in any category you want to post mother!. David O. Russell knew right away that Lawrence was perfect for the role. dramedy perverted and neurotic, and it is impossible to think that Bright side AND american hustle they would work just as well without it. After taking a vacation and becoming a mother, the Oscar-winning performer is back and made us happy. Roads, showing that she is still ready to go deeper and explore the dark side. Composite women have always been her forte, even when she was dyed Mystique blue.

But if you’ve ever seen Lawrence on her talk show appearances or caught her on the red carpet, you know the Kentucky native is hilarious. unpredictable, uncontrollable and WTF fun. She has such chaotic energy that one would think that this movie star is a new incarnation of Carole Lombard, whose beauty has not been diminished, but supplemented with a truly crazy sense of humor. Nobody, not even Russell, really used this part of his public persona; even in his role in a “comedy” like Don’t look upLawrence was turned into a rambling voice of reason in a sea of ​​madmen.




So when an uncensored trailer came out a few months ago suggesting that some creatives had finally figured out how to use Lawrence’s wild personality and comedy routines, all for the sake of a premise that tested the boundaries of “good taste,” interest arose and how. In the end we got what we wanted: unfiltered J-Law, which she herself tamed in the name of maturity and came back wild and foul-mouthed. That would be damn worthy of a sexy secret comedy queen. Right? Right?!

Never. girlfriend for rent this gives Lawrence the chance to act repulsively anti-social against a sea of ​​gay assholes, like a victorious cad battling the world of snobs one “fuck you” at a time. Needless to say, she’s the best thing about this failed attempt at an “adult” sex comedy, just like a daisy looks so much better than the pile of shit it grew out of. Her timing, her way of reacting with incendiary sarcasm, her uncanny knack for physical comedy: give her a ladder when she’s skating, a shelf to knock her over after she’s been hit in the throat, or a licensed jerk to blow off steam against. . and Lawrence will not disappoint. However, even J-Law without the leash of etiquette cannot save someone so lazy and desperate as to offend. The movie just doesn’t live up to its standards. Actually not at any level.

Her character, Maddie Barker, hails from Montauk, New York and has a well-deserved reputation for destruction. He made friends with most of the boys in town, but soon began to ignore them; the list of his enemies is long. Her anger at her is only matched by the resentment she harbors towards all these rich people who recently left, treating citizens like slaves and jacking up property taxes on her late mother’s house, which she now cannot pay because she simply Out of money. car after she lost her job as an Uber driver.

That’s why Maddie responds to a Craigslist ad from a local couple (Matthew Broderick and Laura Benanti) in her Buick. However, they do not want money. In exchange for a car, these two worried parents would like 30-year-old Maddy to date their 19-year-old son Percy (newcomer Andrew Bart Feldman). In Maddie’s terms, she should, um, “date.” The boy is smart but shy, talented but afraid of his own shadow. He’s going to college in the fall and his parents want to boost his self-esteem. What could be better than seducing him with an older woman?




Andrew Bart Feldman and Jennifer Lawrence in Girlfriend for Hire. Photo: Macall Polay/Columbia Pictures

Now you either resent or voluntarily accept this morally dubious situation, which in the 1960s would be called “dirty”, in the 1970s “risky” and a little Risky business – old people out … children dancing in the eighties. (You can see excerpts from Tom Cruise’s first movie, as well as a hint of Graduatein the idea of ​​a boy’s initiation into an adult life characterized by sex, capitalism and vulgarity.) girlfriend for rent look for the combination of laughter and cuteness that the Farrelly brothers perfected, especially when the movie wants you to take care of the characters. Maddy begins to sympathize with this boy. He in turn forces her to talk about her father’s problems when she doesn’t try to ride him and gets hit in the crotch. You’ll feel the movie tense up to make you laugh in your stomach as it also tries to tug at your heartstrings but stumbles clumsily from height to height. Whatever you say about the Farrelly family, they figured out how to get the right combination of bittersweet for a fundamentally dirty comedy. This movie is just bittersweet.

In addition, he is also trying to spark a decade-long wave of female comedies with rebellious protagonists, which peaked in Friends of the bride and its lowest point with A bad teacher is a bad teacher.. No wonder director and co-writer Gene Stupnitsky also wrote this Cameron Diaz film, which gave us an equally glorious degenerate heroine who softens over time, matures, and so on. Stupnitsky also worked on Office, but everything he learned about comedy he doesn’t use in this film. The scenes seem to end just as they start to gain some comedic momentum, and none of the cuts have a pace that should make you sick of laughing thanks to Lawrence’s talent. Minor characters appear for a nanosecond and then disappear from the film’s memory. (Hasan Minhai, Kyle Mooney and Ebon Moss-Bahrach deserve an apology.) Did we mention Lawrence is naked and beating up robbers on the beach when she gets kicked in the genitals? It’s kind of an exhibit meant to puff up the audience, and it was probably amazing on paper. But the way the sequence is presented is like the sudden death of an on-screen gag.

The more you watch comedy parts girlfriend for rent which inevitably turn into failures, the more angry you become. Lawrence tries very hard, he works hard to make the dialogue work, the double entenders and make this mistake worthy of sympathy, he throws himself into a routine. farce and in epic fail Maddie is sexy with enthusiasm. And you want the film to support her performance, not hinder it. Ultimately, the best way to see his work here is via YouTube, when inspired moments of gonzo frenzy and wide-eyed reactions will stand alone as short bursts of hilarity and stand out from the movie they’re in. Future Raunch-com Adult films from studios, let alone those that make it to theaters, depend on stars like Lawrence doing exactly what she does to support the film. It’s hard not to think that this attempt to revive the genre is actually undermining its future.

From Rolling Stone USA

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