The Movie No Strings Attached: a happy ending if…?

I wonder what people’s reaction to the movie “No Strings Attached”would have been if it were a guy behaving in the manner that Natalie Portman’s character did, or had the ending been different.

More after the cut, but be advised it contains spoilers!

Recently, I went with a friend to see the new Natalie Portman/Ashton Kutcher movie No Strings Attached. Two things before I really get into my thoughts; first I don’t normally see a lot of romcoms/chickflicks, second I also do not believe that we should read toooooo much into the tripe Hollywood puts out. It was cute enough, though laden with just about every romcom cliché possible.

I know, what I am writing is breaking #2, but hey. Now you know why I don’t normally go see these movies.

The story line is simple, these two people keep running into each other. Then one night in a drunken stupor, Kutcher’s character ends up at Portman’s house. The morning after waking up naked (having had sex with no one) he and Portman get it on.(admittedly I laughed at the sex scene because it was pretty accurate for a first time oh crap, where is the condom moment)  After they have sex one more time, Portman suggests they just use each other for sex.

You can already guess the ending. They end up in love and happily ever after. Yep, like we all know that is exactly how FWB relationships end right?

So throughout the whole movie I was thinking If the male character were the one with commitment issues and acting the way the female is, it wouldn’t be a comedy. He would be labeled a jerk that she should just get over and this would be a totally different kind of movie. Specifically at the point where she shows up at his house and chases off two other girls, with a tennis racket I think. I guess I was just amused at what this said about our culture…because “art” reflects culture right? When a girl doesn’t want a relationship but the boy is desperate for it, it is funny.

The other thing I got to thinking about was the ending. How she realized the error of her ways and ran to him to tell him she wanted nothing more than to be his. Okay, I admit it I am a sucker for people in love, doesn’t matter their gender I think that love is a wonderful thing. That being said, I wonder how audiences would have reacted to this movie had she decided to stick to her guns that she doesn’t really want a conventional relationship….or had they decided to give a less than conventional relationship a go (as in an open relationship). So yeah, the movie had the stereotypical ending of happily ever after.

I just can’t see that people would have liked the ending if it didn’t stick to formula. Formula is safe, formula is comfort. Formula leads to this movie (for all there were funny moments, he made her a period mix…as in it was her time of the month and he made a CD for it. Like “Keep Bleeding Love”, “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “I got the world on a string”…I admit it, I cracked up)…and well society is what it is I guess.

Anyone else seen it? Thoughts?