Friends with Benefits
They've removed commitment from the relationship. Feelings didn't get the memo.
Director
Will Gluck
Release
9 September 2011
Runtime
109 Minutes
Certificate
15
Synopsis
Jamie Rellis works as a corporate headhunter in New York. Her latest target is Dylan Harper, a talented Los Angeles art director she wants to recruit for GQ. Dylan isn't convinced New York is where he wants to live, so Jamie sets out to sell him on both the job and the city. It works. Dylan accepts the position and moves across the country. With few friends in New York, he begins spending more time with Jamie. Their friendship develops quickly. So does their attraction. But both arrive with plenty of reasons to distrust conventional romance. Rather than risk another failed relationship, Dylan and Jamie decide they can have the physical side without everything that normally comes with it. They establish rules. They're friends who have sex. Nothing more. Initially, the arrangement appears to work. But the more time they spend together, the harder it becomes to pretend that their connection ends when they leave the bedroom. Dylan introduces Jamie to his family. Jamie sees parts of his life he doesn't normally expose to other people. And both begin reacting in ways their supposedly emotion-free arrangement isn't designed to handle. The problem isn't that their rules were unclear. The problem is that neither of them accounted for what would happen if the person they didn't want a relationship with became the person they didn't want to lose.
The Movie Trailer
Dylan Harper and Jamie Rellis are both convinced they've figured out what's wrong with relationships.
The emotional part.
Jamie is a New York headhunter who persuades Los Angeles art director Dylan to move across the country for a new job.
They quickly become friends.
They're attracted to each other too.
But neither wants another complicated relationship.
So they come up with what seems like an incredibly simple solution.
They'll sleep together without dating.
No romance.
No jealousy.
No expectations.
And absolutely no falling in love.
For two intelligent adults convinced they can separate sex from emotion, it sounds perfectly logical.
Unfortunately, human beings aren't particularly good at following rules they've invented to protect themselves.
THE DEAL
No Dating. No Commitment. No Chance This Goes Wrong.
Dylan and Jamie don't stumble into their arrangement.
They negotiate it.
That's what makes the idea seem so sensible to them.
Both understand what they're agreeing to, and both believe they're emotionally experienced enough to keep friendship, sex and romance in completely separate boxes.
On paper, they've eliminated the problem.
But relationships don't tend to care what was agreed on paper.
The more comfortable Dylan and Jamie become with each other, the less convincing their boundaries start to look.
DYLAN & JAMIE
The Relationship They Don't Want Starts Looking Suspiciously Like a Relationship
The irony is that Dylan and Jamie spend enormous amounts of time avoiding something they're already building.
They talk.
They argue.
They support one another.
They learn each other's insecurities.
They meet family.
And somewhere among all that, the distinction between friendship and romance becomes increasingly difficult to defend.
Sex isn't what makes their arrangement complicated.
Everything surrounding it does.
THE CLICHÉ
Maybe Romantic Comedies Had a Point After All
Dylan and Jamie are both suspicious of romantic fantasy.
They understand the clichés.
They recognise the predictable moments.
And they believe they're far too sensible to become characters in exactly that kind of story.
That's part of the joke running through Friends with Benefits.
Knowing how romance is supposed to work doesn't make anyone immune to it.
Dylan and Jamie can mock every cliché they want.
That doesn't stop them from discovering why some of those clichés existed in the first place.