Content Warning: Spoilers for the 2023 film “No Hard Feelings.”

I’m not afraid to admit I’ve watched some off stuff over the years, but this movie is sticking with me.

“No Hard Feelings” is a comedy about 32-year-old Maddie, played by Jennifer Lawrence. Maddie was born in Montauk, New York, and finds herself in danger of losing her childhood home due to rising property taxes. As Maddie makes most of her money as an Uber driver, when her car is repossessed, she gets a little desperate and responds to an unhinged ad on Craigslist.

This Craiglist ad (supposedly based on a real Craigslist ad) is posted by a wealthy helicopter couple looking for a young woman to fake a relationship with their socially-awkward 19-year-old. It’s very much “Failure to Launch,” only R-Rated, and the male lead is a literal teenager.

Did reading that make you feel uncomfortable? If so, good. The entire movie’s premise seemed to be written with the intention of discomforting the audience.

I found this storyline somewhat interesting because it sounded like the B-Plot from a dumb 80s sex comedy, like Private School or Revenge of the Nerds. If this movie had taken place in the 80s, it probably would have been about three awkward guys trying to lose their virginity before prom, and it would be entirely from their perspective. The most normal of them would learn something about himself, grow as a person, and end up with Elisabeth Shue, and the perviest among them would end up with Pheobe Cates. The least important of them would experience most of the plot of “No Hard Feelings,” except walk away from it with an interest in older women. I’m thinking something like “Finch” from the American Pie movies.

However, it’s been over 20 years since the American Pie movies first aired, and even longer since those 80s sex comedies flooded pop culture. Society’s understanding of gender, sexuality, and the necessity of consent has become much more nuanced. A lot of the “hilarious sexy antics” we see in those old (yes, I’m calling them “old”) popular movies would now be rightfully classified as crimes. There’s been a ton of analysis about it. A common joke I encounter in comedy skits is how a modern audience would interpret those “sexy pranks.”

Just so we’re clear, tone-deaf sex comedies still got made in the 2010s and 2020s, but they’re a lot more likely to head directly to streaming and not be very popular. The raunchy movies that are more likely to get a theatrical release are often still full of dirty jokes but are usually told from a different perspective. These include movies like “Bridesmaids,” “Trainwreck,” and “Joy Ride.” 

There isn’t a shortage of dirty movies; it’s just that their focus and perspective have evolved. Many of these films have also discovered that an ounce of empathy and compassion in their storytelling makes for a better movie while giving them a pass to get away with even more offensive content. 

So yeah, back to “No Hard Feelings.” 

This movie wasn’t at the top of my to-watch list, but I’ve spent the past few weeks back in the Bay Area with my sister, who refuses to watch anything that’s not a comedy or reality show, and this was the only movie that fell in our Venn diagram of interests. Neither of us really expected the movie to be good. What resulted was a very odd viewing experience, with each of us occasionally looking at each other and grimacing more often than laughing. 

Prior to its release, “No Hard Feelings” had been criticized for what some critics considered promoting grooming. There is a 13-year age difference between Maddie and Percy, and like I said earlier, the latter is a teenager. Although the movie tries to emphasize that Percy is an “adult” at the ripe old age of 19, he’s still way too young. Their early interactions are actually pretty funny: she tries to flirt with him or is aggressively sexual, and he panics or just outright misunderstands her. Maddie is desperate and trying to save her house, so I didn’t want to be too judgemental towards her. 

Frankly, I reserved all my judgment for the creepy helicopter parents who orchestrated this icky scenario and consciously chose financially compensate a 32-year-old woman for seducing their son.

Here’s what I expected to happen: Maddie takes the deal to “date” Percy in exchange for the car. Eventually, she realizes the best way to get the car and help Percy would be to set him up with an age-appropriate girlfriend. “Not Another Teen Movie” antics would then follow.

That’s not what happens. At about the halfway point in this movie, Maddie develops complicated feelings for Percy. She clearly likes him as a person, albeit platonically, although at times, this crosses over into romantic. There’s a scene midway through the movie where Percy runs into a nice former schoolmate who will attend the same college as him in the fall, who then invites him to a party to meet some of his peers. This would have been a good opportunity for the movie to introduce a more appropriate love interest for him. 

Except it doesn’t. Rather, Maddie becomes insecure and behaves jealously and immaturely. She wants to spend the evening with Percy doing date stuff, but he wants to go to the party. This was when the movie lost me. My cringing, which had only happened when the filmmakers wanted me to feel uncomfortable, was now constant. 

It was after this scene that Bean and I started whispering to each other, “Wait, she’s not, like, into him, is she?”

This prevailing idea throughout the movie is that Percy is supposed to act a certain way. He’s going to college, so he should want to drink, party, and hang out with girls. Part of the reason the father tries to set Percy up with an older woman is that he had a relationship with an older woman that helped him become more confident when he was a young man. I assume this relationship happened back in the 80s. 

The movie establishes that Percy is shy and introverted. He tends to recede emotionally because he was the victim of vicious high school bullying. He doesn’t like to leave his comfort zone. That’s relatable. His parents have the right idea of wanting him to be more confident. However, confidence doesn’t need to be achieved through partying and sexual conquests. I think the story would have been stronger if it had acknowledged that for some men, having an “Animal House“-style college experience isn’t going to be what is best for them. It should be okay if he’s not a partier or a womanizer so long as he’s happy. 

The movie tried to suggest that, but it was preoccupied with telling Maddie’s story. The thing is, how many times are we going to hear the same story about immature, sexually promiscuous women who are avoiding emotional attachments as a way to deal with past trauma? (I think it’s interesting that a lot of these stories are written by men, but that’s a topic for another day)

I did a little digging (aka, I read the Wikipedia article about the movie) and noticed some reviewers saying something that did not sit right with me. There was some defense of how Maddie’s age was treated in the movie, with other characters regularly drawing attention to it and commenting on the inappropriateness of her behavior relative to her age. That part I agree with. 

I didn’t like when they later suggested that her “immaturity makes her seem childlike by comparison.” 

Y’all, I cannot tell you how many people I’ve met who “act young for their age” and then use their “youthfulness” as an excuse to not behave responsibly or ethically. It’s often manifested in the guy in his 40s or 50s who “acts young,” so he only dates women in their early 20s. And to be fair, if everyone in that situation is a consenting adult, it’s really none of my business. 

However, there’s a lot of grey area with that. What I really dislike is when someone young, like Percy from the film, who acts very much like a 19-year-old, is somehow portrayed as more emotionally mature. At times, the movie suggests that Percy, although shy, is more advanced emotionally and, therefore a good match for the immature Maddie. 

There are several instances where he speaks to Maddie in such a way as to suggest he knows what’s best for her and that she should take his advice. Those moments also didn’t sit well with me. While I’m glad that more movies are branching out in how they portray young men and their emotional sensitivity, there seems to be some confusion between a character being “wise beyond their years” and an actual adult. 

Even if the character Percy is intelligent, talented, and sensitive, he’s still a teenager. I don’t want to suggest that teenagers are incapable of rational decision-making and forming close bonds with people from different generations, but they should not be placed in a position where they’re responsible for the emotional well-being of an adult. 

“No Hard Feelings” had a few moments that seemed to cross that line. Their relationship reminded me somewhat of the 2007 movie “Juno.” In that movie, Juno, a pregnant 16-year-old, finds that she has a lot in common with the man who plans to adopt her child. Juno thinks she’s found a friend, but it’s clear this man has begun to rely on her emotionally in an extremely inappropriate way, essentially making her the “other woman” in his marriage. Juno realizes this, is extremely upset, and rightfully cuts off contact with this man. It’s hard to watch, but it’s a necessary part of Juno’s development.

While watching “No Hard Feelings,” once Percy realized the arrangement between Maddie and his parents, I remember turning to Bean and saying, “They should never talk again.”

That doesn’t happen. Instead, Percy and Maddie have an awkward sexual encounter that I hated, then they fight and temporarily part ways. Maddie tries to grow up a little, manages to save up enough money to pay off the taxes on her house, and then goes out of her way to repair her friendship with Percy. During this part of the movie, I just desperately wanted her to leave him alone, but the movie seemed to think their friendship was not only worth salvaging but celebrating. 

When I watch a movie that bothers me, I find the best way to work through my feelings is to play “Script Doctor,” and rework the story to be something I think is a little better. Thus, to finish off this post, here is my vision for a less-upsetting version of “No Hard Feelings” in the form of a numbered list:

1. Age Percy up from 19 to 21. This will make his parents’ concern a little more understandable. It will also change his story from, “We can’t send him off to college like this,” to “We want him to feel more confident for his senior year of college.” Everything else in the story, from his social anxiety to his difficulty with girls, would still be relevant. 
2. Introduce an age-appropriate romantic interest for Percy, like the classmate he meets that will be attending Princeton with him. Now she can just be a nice girl from his school he should befriend! Maybe they’ll get together, or maybe they won’t. The point is that he makes connections with his peers.
3. Once her aggressive seduction attempts fail, Maddie should realize the best way to get her car and help Percy is to set him up with this college classmate.
4. The story’s central tension can then turn into Maddie trying to set up Percy and his classmate without making it obvious why she’s trying to get them together. She can mentor him and try to show him “what girls like.”
5. Percy decides he wants to be with his cool, older girlfriend who’s totally into him, thus further complicating the situation. Despite this, Maddie and Percy are never physically intimate.   
6. At the movie’s climax, Percy realizes that his classmate is actually the right person for him, as they actually have stuff in common. Maddie grows as a person and realizes that ghosting men isn’t the healthiest way to end a relationship.
7. Maddie gets her car, Percy never finds out about the gross arrangement his parents made, but they learn their lesson in another way. I’m thinking Percy’s new girlfriend should be the catalyst to creating healthy boundaries with his parents. 
8. Maddie wishes Percy well in his last year of college, and she drives off into the sunset. 

This movie wasn’t bad, but I do think it missed the mark. Although the movie lampshades the generational difference between the main characters, it could have done so in a way that didn’t make me feel like I was watching a crime unfold. If you’ve watched this movie, I’m curious to hear your thoughts. Would you have made any changes? Did you think that Maddie was a “Maneater,” as the movie heavily implied, or is that a sexist attitude? And what would you do if you really, really needed a car?