NO HARD FEELINGS

Name: NO HARD FEELINGS
Item: NO HARD FEELINGS
Author: Gaby Gaduh

"Derailed by Offensive Content"

Content: -3 Excessive sex, violence, immorality, and/or worldview problems. (Sometimes excessive content such as violence is in otherwise redemptive movies.)

Entertainment Quality:

	None	Light	Moderate	Heavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

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What You Need To Know:

NO HARD FEELINGS stars Jennifer Lawrence as a 32-year-old Uber driver, waitress and longtime resident in the summer resort community of Montauk, New York. Maddie’s in trouble for not paying her high property taxes. A tax lien threatens to take her late mother’s house where she lives. Then, her car gets repossessed. To pay her bills and taxes, Maddie finds two helicopter parents who want a young woman to help their shy 19-year-old son come out of his shell and experience an affair before he starts Princeton in the fall. The reward? A used car with only 40,000 miles.

Rated R, NO HARD FEELINGS is well acted. However, it has lots of raunchy comedy in the first half, including excessive nudity in one scene. The movie turns surprisingly serious in the second half, though. In fact, it delivers several insightful, inspiring, heartfelt messages. For example, it promotes honesty, conveys a warning about spoiling and coddling your children, and prods young people to become more mature, responsible adults. However, the lewd, foul language, nudity, and raunchy comedy in NO HARD FEELINGS are too offensive.

Content:

(BB, C, PaPa, Cap, P, PC, LLL, VV, SS, NNN, AA, DD, MM):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Solid moral worldview, with positive messages in the second half and two brief redemptive scenes of forgiveness, promotes honesty, conveys a warning about spoiling and coddling your children, and prods young people to become more mature, responsible adults, but overprotective wealthy parents who’ve spoiled their socially awkward 19-year-old son hire a woman to seduce him and bring him out of his shell before he starts attending Princeton, and the woman is a very loose person with not much of a moral compass, plus woman has an uber business and complains about the high property taxes because of the wealthy summer visitors who’ve driven up her property values, and two or so comments about wealthy summer visitors to resort town that smack of political correct instances of a politics of envy

Foul Language:

At least 64 obscenities (including more than half or so are “f” words), one GD profanity, 12 light profanities, and woman sticks her fingers down younger man’s throat to make him vomit up the alcohol he drank with some ibuprofen

Violence:

Comical violence includes woman fights with teenagers trying to steal her clothes and the clothes of the man she’s with (lot of punching and kicking), young man accidentally punches woman in throat when he takes a swing at and obnoxious older man, 19-year-old sprays Mace into woman’s eyes because he thinks she’s trying to kidnap him, and she rolls around in pain, he sprays water hose all over her when he tries to wash the Mace out of her eyes, car chase with police car

Sex:

Strong sexual content includes a scene with the 32-year-old unmarried woman and the 19-year-old unmarried man starting to make love in a bed together with covers over them, the older woman walks into a room in one scene where the younger man is in bed with a woman his age, but he’s sick because he mixed alcohol with ibuprofen at the party downstairs, the younger man says some of the bullies at school when he was younger made crude insults about his relationship with his parents, woman wiggles her body in front of younger man and tries to give younger man a lap dance, but she squashes his legs, woman tells story about how her father was a wealthy married man who visited the summer resort where her mother lived and abandoned her and her mother, and strong verbal sexual references and innuendoes

Nudity:

Total frontal female nudity when older woman makes younger man go skinny dipping in ocean, and she comes running out of the ocean when some drunk teenagers try to steal their clothes, rear male nudity when young man jumps onto hood of a borrowed car because the female driver still has his clothes and won’t give them back (she’s mad at him because he insulted her), and scenes of upper male nudity

Alcohol Use:

Alcohol use, 19-year-old seems to be drunk in one or two scenes, and drunken teenagers on beach try to steal two skinny dipping people’s clothes

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

No apparent tobacco smoking, but woman seems to be smoking marijuana in two scenes, there’s a reference to doing drugs in the past, and a former drug-sniffing police dog in an animal shelter turns aggressive whenever someone says the word cocaine; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:

Young man mentions being bullied as a child, lying, jealousy, evading police, reckless driving.

More Detail:

NO HARD FEELINGS stars Jennifer Lawrence as a 32-year-old Uber driver who loses her car and is about to lose her late mother’s home to a tax lien when she agrees to seduce the shy, 19-year-old son of two wealthy helicopter parents, in exchange for a nice car for her Uber business. Rated R, NO HARD FEELINGS has lots of raunchy comedy in the first half, including explicit excessive nudity in one scene, but settles down to deliver surprisingly serious, sometimes moving messages about honesty, not spoiling or coddling your children and becoming a mature, responsible adult.

Jennifer Lawrence plays Maddie, a 32-year-old Uber driver, waitress and longtime resident in the summer resort community of Montauk, New York. However, she forgot to pay her expensive property taxes, which keep increasing. With a tax lien threatening to take her late mother’s house where she lives, Maddie’s car gets repossessed by an ex-boyfriend. How is she going to pay the taxes and save her house if she doesn’t have her Uber car to drive the rich summer visitors around town?

Maddie finds an ad from two wealthy helicopter parents who want a woman in her early twenties to bring their 19-year-old son, Percy, out of his shell before he starts attending Princeton in the fall. She convinces them that an older, more experienced woman would do better seducing Percy and teaching him to be a real man.

Maddie tries to start seducing Percy at the animal shelter where he volunteers. However, it doesn’t go well when he thinks she’s trying to kidnap him, and he sprays mace in her face. She tries again the next night by meeting hm at a bar, then forcing him to go skinny-dipping with her on a closed beach. While they swim, three drunken teenagers, two boys and a girl, try to steal their clothes. Maddie runs taken onto the beach and is able to beat them up because they’re so inebriated. The incident doesn’t set right with Percy, which leads to an argument with Maddie, who takes his clothes and tries to drive off. A naked Percy jumps on the roof of her borrowed car, and a wild ride ensues.

Maddie keeps trying to seduce Percy, but less frantically. In one scene, Percy tells Maddie he prefers to have a romantic affair than just a one-night stand. Also, Maddie confesses to her two friends, Jim, and his pregnant wife, Sara, that she’s beginning to like Percy. He’s become a little bit more to her than just a job.

Percy and Maddie agree to dress up and have a traditional romantic dinner at a fancy restaurant, after which they plan to go to her place, where they will make love. Percy impresses Maddie by playing and singing a slow song at a piano set up in the restaurant. However, the mood is interrupted when a girl from Percy’s high school appears. She tells Percy she’s going to Princeton too, and she invites him to attend a Princeton party in town at a wealthy family’s house.

Maddie unexpectedly gets jealous, and this leads to more obscene comical hijinx. The situation turns out okay, though, for the lead characters. It also brings Maddie and Percy closer together. However, complications ensue when it becomes clear that’s Percy’s falling for Maddie, and she’s not falling for him.

NO HARD FEELINGS has lots of strong foul language throughout its running time, including many “f” words. Also, the first half is extremely raunchy. It also includes explicit excessive nudity in the scene where Maddie angrily runs back onto the beach to stop the drunken teenagers from stealing their clothes.

The movie becomes surprisingly serious in its second half, though. For example, Percy movingly plays a song on the piano at the fancy restaurant. Also, eventually, NO HARD FEELINGS delivers some serious, insightful, inspiring, heartfelt messages. For example, it promotes honesty and warns about spoiling and coddling one’s children. Also, both Maddie and Percy become more mature, responsible adults. There’s also a touching scene where Maddie surprises her pregnant friend with a wonderful gift.

Despite the movie’s foul language and crude behavior, the actors do well. Andrew Barth Feldman as Percy delivers a breakout performance.

The positive messages in NO HARD FEELINGS redeem, to a certain extent, the movie’s salacious content. However, the movie’s basic cringe-inducing comical setup about seducing a young adult, its offensive language and gratuitous nudity are excessive and highly objectionable. The comedy in NO HARD FEELINGS seldom strays from its R rating.

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Quality:

- Content: -3