Barbie casts a long, hype-filled shadow, but one of the other movies we’re paying attention to this summer is No Hard Feelings, which is both hopefully a comeback for the R-rated studio comedy in theaters, and also part of Jennifer Lawrence’s post-blockbuster career strategy.
A new red-band trailer is here, and much like the Barbie trailer, the new No Hard Feelings trailer is setting up the basic plot of the film. JLaw stars as Maddie, a woman seemingly stuck in her hometown with nothing going on, who needs a new car after hers is repossessed. She agrees to date a rich couple’s loser son in exchange for a new Buick Regal. That’s it. That’s the plot.
I do not know how it is possible, but the global toy brand movie seems less tackily branded than No Hard Feelings, which prominently features a Buick Regal in the new trailer. Why not just make it a cash deal? Maddie needs cash, they’ll give her cash. I mean, I know why, and it’s because Buick gave Sony money to prominently feature their car in a movie, and lo, it is done. Product placement exists in everything, there’s no use bemoaning its existence, but it can be done better than this!
Anyway, Buick aside, No Hard Feelings looks kind of cute. Jennifer Lawrence has always had good timing and is capable of delivering screwball energy, and a raunchy comedy seems right up her alley, given how she famously likes to talk about farts in interviews (or used to, not sure if that’s still part of the new, grown-up JLaw). I just wonder how far they’ll really take the escort-lite premise. There are swears in this red band trailer, but there’s also a joke about how nobody f-cks anymore, and the vibe here is less “hard R sex comedy” and more “coming of age comedy”. Except for the swears, No Hard Feelings looks pretty tame. But then, how wild can the Buick movie get? It’s a family car!
Attached - Jennifer Lawrence in Cannes last week.
