Friends with No Strings Comparison and Review

Famous couple Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis have both individually been a part of a great many films and TV shows since their popularity skyrocketed after the success of That 70’s Show. It was a funny coincidence when these two former co-stars started dating, eventually getting married and starting a family. Perhaps a bigger coincidence is just a year prior to beginning their relationship, they both individually starred in movies with similar plots; incredibly similar plots. This fact is something the internet has poked fun at and has delighted in the irony. Recently I have watched both these films, having never seen them before, and I wanted to find out what was so similar about the two movies.

Friends with Benefits was released in 2011 with Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake taking on the starring roles of the film. Mila Kunis plays a headhunter looking for someone to fill a position for GQ and Justin Timberlake plays the man she’s trying to relocate. After Justin’s character, Dylan, accepts the job, he moves to New York where he has few friends and connections. This is when Dylan forms a friendship with Mila Kunis’ character, Jamie, as she is one of the only people in the city that Dylan knows. Pretty quickly into their friendship, the two decide they have a great connection but aren’t ready to commit to a serious relationship with anyone. They then make a deal with one another to just be friends… with benefits (a big shocker, considering the title). This relationship lasts for a while, but ultimately doesn’t serve Jamie well and she ends the sex when she wants to start dating again. Jamie’s attempt at dating goes sour and her relationship with her estranged mother is in a rocky place, so Dylan is there to pick up the pieces. After taking Jamie to meet his family and almost losing her completely, Dylan realizes he is in love with Jamie and has to do something big to win her back.

No Strings Attached is about a young man who meets a girl when he’s 14 at camp. Later in life, after Ashton Kutcher’s character, Adam, finds out his dad is dating his ex-girlfriend, he rekindles a friendship with Emma, played by Natalie Portman, the girl he originally met at camp when they were teens. Now that they are grown, Emma is a doctor and Adam is a struggling TV writer. Emma is not looking for a serious relationship because her schedule is full working at the hospital, so Adam and Emma begin a relationship with… No Strings Attached. Eventually, Adam begins to have feelings for Emma and asks her on a date. The date goes horribly because Emma has commitment issues and doesn’t want to have feelings involved with her and Adam’s relationship. This leads to the couple breaking up for a while. In the end, Emma realizes she’s lost the only person who ever meant anything to her and is determined to win him back.

At their core, these movies are the exact same movie. There is a person in each movie that wants a deeper relationship with the person they’re sleeping with; in Friends with Benefits, Jamie is wanting the relationship with Dylan and in No Strings Attached Adam is wanting the relationship with Emma. The reasons Dylan and Emma don’t want to have a relationship is exactly the same as well; they are both weird about feelings and serious relationships. Dylan feels this way because his parents are divorced and his mom left them when they were young; he’s not sure if love is real and definitely doesn’t believe in a fairytale love like Jamie does. Emma doesn’t seem to have the familial backstory to back up her weird feelings about love and marriage. For her, it seems her career takes up a lot of space in her life, but towards the end of the movie we learn that she really is just terrified to love and be loved.

To be honest, I find Emma to be a terrible character. Not because she is afraid to be loved by Adam (who actually seems really wholesome as far as a partner goes), but because of how she handles her fear of love. On her and Adam’s first real date, he attempts to tell her how he feels about her. She cuts him off and ignores his feelings. Later on the date, Emma and Adam get into an argument. Emma is mad that Adam has taken her on the date because they aren’t supposed to have feelings in their relationship, just sex. This is the opportunity Adam takes to profess his love to Emma and she reacts in anger. She begins to attack Adam, hitting him and pushing him around until a nearby officer separates them. It is after this incident that Adam and Emma end their relationship with one another. I don’t believe that Emma and Adam should have gotten back together after this incident, but of course, you know they do. The abusive outburst from Emma is scary to see in a relationship the viewer is supposed to be rooting for. I found it difficult to like Emma as a character, especially after the outburst. The whole movie she was doing crazy things and I didn’t feel like her and Adam were a good couple despite their obvious chemistry. There are just some lines in relationships you can’t cross and once you’ve crossed them the relationship needs to be over. For me, the relationship ran its course and I didn’t want to see them get back together.

Jamie was a much better heroine as far as the female lead between these two films. She was cool and funny. She had fairytale hopes and dreams, but seemed to be a very grounded individual. At one point in the movie, Dylan is talking to his sister and calls her damaged, which I didn’t really see in Jamie. She had a pretty messy relationship with her mother and didn’t know who her dad was, but she didn’t do anything on screen that made me feel like she was damaged. I think Dylan was just trying to convince his sister that he wasn’t in love with her, but I don’t think wanting to have a fairytale romance makes you a damaged person necessarily.

Dylan and Adam were both himbos in these movies and were the most entertaining part for sure. As far as male characters go, I think Dylan was a better written character; he was so funny and had a lot of really good jokes. Dylan also had a lot of depth to him, especially after he brought Jamie to meet his family and the viewer got to know more about his background. Adam was also a good character, but he was really just Ashton Kutcher being Ashton Kutcher. He seemed like a sweet guy though and that’s all a viewer really needs in a romantic comedy of this caliber.

Other similarities between these movies include: a token gay character, the male character having daddy issues, lots of sex, and a happy ending. The movies were also released the same year and have almost the exact same run time with No Strings Attached running for an hour and fifty minutes and Friends with Benefits running for an hour and forty nine minutes. These movies are super similar, so I invite you to watch both and compare them yourselves. But, if you’re only going to watch one, I suggest Friends with Benefits. The love story is better, the character building is better, and the token gay guy is played by Woody Harrelson, so it doesn’t get much better than that.