Friends with Benefits
Screen Gems | Release Date: July 22, 2011 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
63
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 37 Critic Reviews
Positive:
25
Mixed:
10
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
88
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottJul 22, 2011
The result isn't just the best new romantic comedy released so far this year, but one of the best comedies, period. Read full review
88
Orlando SentinelRoger MooreJul 20, 2011
Chemistry is king. It's one reason the rom-com has long seemed like the toughest code for Hollywood to crack. But never underestimate the power of snappy, rapid-fire banter, the paving stones of the Hollywood road to romance. Read full review
83
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallJul 20, 2011
It works because Timberlake and Kunis are totally in control of their damaged characters without winking at the audience, as if to say: "Aren't we cute, behaving so naughty?" Their sex is amusingly awkward, and their repressed longings more so. It's the kind of chemistry that comes along once in a generation. Read full review
80
The New YorkerDavid DenbyJul 24, 2011
Friends with Benefits is fast, allusive, urban, glamorous - clearly the Zeitgeist winner of the summer. Read full review
80
Time OutAlison WillmoreJul 21, 2011
It's after the sex friends go back to being just friends that the film really hits its stride, and that's also when the excellent Patricia Clarkson and Richard Jenkins enter the picture as loving but imperfect parents who help explain what's made both leads so gun-shy. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterMichael RechtshaffenJul 18, 2011
Goes a long way in bringing sexy back to a soggy genre, benefiting greatly from the presence of its likable leads. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Anita LiJul 23, 2011
It's a tired formula moviegoers know well, but in the case of Friends With Benefits, it works. Read full review
75
New York PostLou LumenickJul 22, 2011
Chemistry is the usually misfiring engine that drives romantic comedies, so it's a pleasure to report that Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis are practically combustible together in Friends With Benefits. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJul 21, 2011
The takeaway on Friends With Benefits is that mores change, styles change, the rules change, and even humor changes. (There are two jokes involving apps, of all things, that are pretty funny.) But people's emotional needs remain the same from era to era. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrJul 21, 2011
That it works like a charm - that it mostly keeps its manic energy in check, and that it plays to chick-flick formulas without ever groveling - is due almost entirely to the leads. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliJul 21, 2011
Unchallenging but easy to like. There's not enough here to capture the interest of those indifferent to romantic comedies, but fans - even of the casual variety - will find this to be a pleasant mid-summer diversion. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubScott TobiasJul 21, 2011
Romantic comedies - and this is one, in spite of its phony irreverence - turn largely on star power, and theirs is transcendent, whether they're casually trading one-liners on the streets or doing running commentary on their sexual escapades. They'd have been better off staying in bed. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJul 21, 2011
I enjoy both Timberlake and Kunis; just this side of manic, they seem right together. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertJul 20, 2011
The news about this movie is that it makes it clear that both Timberlake and Kunis are the real thing when it comes to light comedy. Read full review
70
SlateDana StevensJul 23, 2011
A dumb, by-the-numbers romantic comedy. Yet I kept finding small things to enjoy in it, mainly because of the two hard-to-hate leads. Read full review
70
SalonAndrew O'HehirJul 23, 2011
On the whole, Friends With Benefits is a rewarding summer diversion, albeit one that's fatally torn between what it wants to be -- riotous, anarchic and anti-moralistic -- and the disappointing wet-blanket formula it reverts to in the end. Read full review
70
TimeMary PolsJul 23, 2011
The screenplay, with credits shared by Gluck, Keith Merryman and David A. Newman, is predictable, plotwise. But it is elevated by energetic dialogue, the sexual chemistry between the leads and the fact that the miscommunication that keeps bliss at bay - there's always one in a rom-com, and usually it is annoyingly unbelievable - is plausible. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderAndrea GronvallJul 21, 2011
The jokes don't all work and the topical references can be irritably hipper-than-thou, but at least director and cowriter Will Gluck (Easy A) aims high: this is patterned on the Tracy and Hepburn comedies, albeit with a lot more skin. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla DargisJul 21, 2011
The results are about as naughty as that sounds (not very), but it also makes for a fairly giggling good time. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanJul 21, 2011
I'm not exactly sure this is a situation that a lot of people are going to identify with. More to the point, it gives the movie a faulty design. Dylan and Jamie sleep together and get along famously. Where's the dramatic motor? Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesJul 20, 2011
The middle of a movie is often where filmmakers lose their way, but Friends With Benefits nails this stretch, in which nothing very remarkable happens as two people talk, in bed and out of bed. There's a fine line between fun-dirty and ick-dirty – sometimes you can't identify the line until it's been crossed – and this film keeps its toes on the right side of raunch. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia PuigJul 21, 2011
When it's good, Friends With Benefits is quite good - especially as it skewers rom-com clichés. Read full review
63
Washington PostAnn HornadayJul 21, 2011
If Kunis gets the showier role in Friends With Benefits, Timberlake proves a quietly charming stalking horse, finally claiming and fully owning the spotlight with a hilarious homage to the 1990s rap duo Kriss Kross. Read full review
63
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsJul 21, 2011
A bait-and-switch comedy. It poses as a naughty "no-mance" about friends who use each other for casual sex, but at the moment of truth it goes limp. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaJul 21, 2011
Instead of gleaning something from real life, the great minds behind Friends With Benefits slapped their ideas together based on screwball classics, "Sleepless in Seattle" bits, and a keen analysis of Hollywood hackery. Read full review
60
EmpireAnna SmithSep 5, 2011
This coasts along just fine thanks to charm and comical interludes, but it fails to deliver the sassy story it promises. Fine for a romantic comedy, but an inferior follow up to director Gluck's edgier "Easy A." Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanJul 22, 2011
It's cute and funny and sweet, which - as any woman can attest - puts it way ahead of most Friday night options. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyJul 21, 2011
Even with all their huffing and puffing, this very salty, often funny affair is never quite as satisfying as it should be. Read full review
60
Boxoffice MagazineAmy NicholsonJul 21, 2011
By poking fun at the cliches, director Gluck thinks he can turn an inevitability into an in-joke. Eh, it'll do. Read full review
60
VarietyPeter DebrugeJul 18, 2011
The raunchy premise here is just a smokescreen for the sort of squarely moralistic, altar-bound comedy of which even Jane Austen would approve. Read full review
55
NPRIan BuckwalterJul 22, 2011
Watching these two actors move from being sweetly flirtatious to doing real emotional battle may not entirely compensate for the movie's other failings, but it goes a long way toward making amends. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter TraversJul 21, 2011
Their banter is fun at the start until it becomes relentless. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezJul 20, 2011
The movie is pleasant overall and occasionally comes up with a big laugh. When the movie's over, though, it evaporates from memory, just like a one-night stand that didn't go nearly as well as you'd hoped. Read full review
50
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJul 20, 2011
Patricia Clarkson is kind of funny as Jamie's mom, an unreformed hippie. And Timberlake and Kunis get in a few good laughs before it's over. But with such a well-worn story, you can't shake the idea you've seen this kind of thing before. Read full review
45
MovielineStephanie ZacharekJul 21, 2011
Every actor in Friends with Benefits, including the nearly indestructible Patricia Clarkson and Richard Jenkins, stalls out in the process of pedaling desperately to make this substandard material work. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineAndrew SchenkerJul 21, 2011
For a film that had once made some pretense toward exposing such dangerously submissive attitudes toward Hollywood romance, Friends with Benefits's conclusion can't help but seem more than a wee bit disingenuous. Read full review
30
Village VoiceMelissa AndersonJul 21, 2011
What's most crushing is witnessing what should have been the dream pairing of Kunis and Timberlake - both foxy, loose, confident performers - here generating zero chemistry. Read full review
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