Plot: Jamie (Mila Kunis) is an Executive Recruiter for a leading job agency in New York City and Dylan (Justin Timberlake) works as an art director for a small internet company in Los Angeles. Jamie has the task of trying to recruit Dylan to interview for a job with GQ magazine and begin working in New York City. Dylan comes to New York and after interviewing for the position learns from Jamie that he has been given an offer to work for GQ. At first Dylan is hesitant to accept and move from Los Angeles to New York, but in an effort to get Dylan to accept the job Jamie spends the evening taking him around the city trying to sell him on the opportunity and the city.
After a fun night together exploring the city Dylan agrees to take the job. The next day Jamie presents Dylan with the contract to sign so she can land her commission for recruiting him. Not knowing anyone else in the city he and Jamie quickly develop a friendship. One night while hanging out at Jamie’s apartment watching a romantic comedy they get on the topic of sex and relationships. They come to the conclusion that sex should not come with so many emotional attachments. Both feeling the need for a physical connection they agree to have sex without emotion or commitment involved. After several trysts together Jamie comes to the realization that this isn’t really what she wants, and she would like to start dating again and informs Dylan that they need to stop.
Impressions: It was ok. Honestly the first 5 minutes of FWB was downright hilarious, after which it kind of died down. Kunis and Timberlake have decent chemistry… I think they’re even an item in real life now? I don’t know.
Timberlake is slowly but surely establishing himself as an actor. He’s got enough charisma to do it. He just needs the right specific role to push him over. He’s still very much the pretty boy on screen, but definitely less N’Sync now. I think the movie could’ve benefited more from sidekick personalities, there was opportunity there but I guess we just didn’t get enough screen time from the supporting actors. In the end it was just about Kunis/Timberlake which was fine, as the movie progressed you felt slightly more involved with them. For some reason it was just slightly odd to see such heavy exposition from only the two of them I guess. Like they were the only actors in the movie and when they started to introduce other characters in, they were merely plot devices. It felt like an enclosed bubble of the sorts and to me that felt unrealistic from a perspective. I think I was thinking it would be more lighthearted with a breadth of characters. Instead they felt more like cameos from other actors.
It was still cliche in respect to romcoms, which is fine. That’s how these are built. I think the last smart romcom I watched was “Easy A”. FWB admitted itself to be cliche and still approached an ending you could call out after a specific scene in the film 10-15 min in. In some ways it’s also slightly stupidly realistic. As in “yeah the stupid things in relationships” that actually do occur.
Decent enough watch overall though.
