Jennifer Lawrence In No Hard Feelings Is The Female Character I Was Missing In The 2000s R-Rated Comedies I Grew Up On

Jennifer Lawrence's performance in No Hard Feelings is a favorite of mine in recent comedy movies, and we've really come far since my beloved comedy films of the 2000s. It can be hard to stand out in the pantheon of R-rated comedies. I can remember where I was for almost everyone I've seen. They can just be so unbelievably funny. I'll admit, though, that my memory of the first time watching No Hard Feelings is a little hazy, a consequence of it coming at the tail end of the COVID-19 pandemic, a time when everything was hazy.

What I specifically remember is watching the trailer with my mother and us bursting out laughing when a naked and fed-up Jennifer Lawrence screamed from the ocean at Andrew Barth Feldman, "Just get the f**k in here!" That is the JLaw difference. She can turn a lame line into something funny and a funny line into something hilarious. It's really thanks to her that Sony revived the dying rom com genre (no offense, Anyone But You), and her character, Maddie Barker, is unique among comedy characters for obvious and not-so-obvious reasons.

Jennifer Lawrence's Maddie Barker Is A Refreshing Comedy Protagonist

In The 2000s, Lawrence's Character Would Have Gone To A Man

Jennifer Lawrence stars as Maddie Barker in the cast of No Hard Feelings, a sex comedy from director Gene Stupnitsky. Maddie is a 32-year-old Uber driver and bartender in Montauk, New York, who owes significant taxes on the house she inherited from her mother. At a loose end, Maddie accepts an odd offer from a wealthy couple, Alison (Laura Benanti) and Laird (Matthew Broderick) Becker. They ask her to date and sleep with their 19-year-old son, Percy (Feldman). In exchange, she'll get a new car so she can continue working after hers is repossessed.

The Lairds want their son to come out of his shell before going off to college, and Maddie gladly accepts. This seemingly crude sex-comedy plot hides a thoughtful and fascinating look at relationships, and of course, there are plenty of laughs along the way. It was only in the 2010s that I began to see movies like these: R-rated sex comedies with strong female protagonists. Before this, in movies like Wedding Crashers, Knocked Up, The Hangover, and other comedies of the 2000s, it would be a man who is dealing with a personal crisis and has to work through it.

With later films like Bridesmaids and Trainwreck, women have started to get a fair shake as the leads of these big-budget comedies, but there are still plenty more starring men. Jennifer Lawrence's character is particularly unique because, even in Bridesmaids and Trainwreck, the causes of the protagonists' problems are internal, whereas in many male-led comedies, the guy has to react to something out of his control, or at least partly out of his control. Maddie isn't someone who just has to get her life together to fix all her problems.

She has a concrete issue. She needs a job to get a car to pay the taxes on a house she can barely afford. That sounds a lot more like the plot of Superbad, where the guys need to get drinks for a party and get laid, or Step Brothers, where Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly have to contend with a new sibling. The plot of No Hard Feelings seems like it would traditionally be written for a male lead, so it's refreshing to see a woman placed there instead.

Maddie Is A Better Female Character Than Can Be Found In Most 2000s Comedies

Most Women In 2000s Movies Fall Into A Handful Of Archetypes

I absolutely love the comedies of the 2000s. Anchorman basically informed my humor for the next decade, which, looking back, is now as cringy as it sounds. Knocked Up and Superbad are legitimately great movies with themes about friendship and growing up. The Hangover is the hardest I've ever laughed in a movie theater. There's one thing these films all lack, however, and that's strong female characters. As always, there are a few exceptions. Emma Stone is surprisingly down-to-earth and relaxed in Superbad.

I'll also always go to bat for Katherine Heigl in Knocked Up, who I think is a much more self-possessed character than people give her credit for. However, Emma Stone is not a big part of Superbad, and Heigl's character's story revolves around her pregnancy. Not that that's an issue per se, but, of course a major comedy with a woman in the lead role would necessarily have motherhood as a major component of her character. Then there are the other comedies of the era, where female characters are sex objects, shrews, or unrealistically perfect. It's boring at best, sexist at worst.

Maddie is none of these things. She's certainly not perfect. She can barely hold on to her car long enough to complete her Ubering job. She's not a shrew. I mean she agreed to sleep with a 19-year-old for a new car. The girl doesn't seem to take life too seriously. Based on the short description of No Hard Feelings, it might feel like Maddie is a sex object, but that's not the point of the character. If anything, Percy is the sex object, literally almost.

This is nowhere more apparent than in the skinny-dipping scene when Jennifer Lawrence goes completely nude for an extended sequence where she whups up on some rude teenagers. It is ridiculous and the exact sort of raunchy hilarity that we used to find in movies like Borat or Forgetting Sarah Marshall where a character is naked solely for the purposes of comedy. In early 2000s comedies, like the sex montage in Wedding Crashers, there's definitional nudity via the male gaze. That is not what No Hard Feelings is going for.

No Hard Feelings Is The Perfect Type Of Movie For Jennifer Lawrence

Lawrence Needs To Be In More Big Budget Comedies

Jennifer Lawrence is no stranger to comedy movies, but her performance in No Hard Feelings was still a bit of a welcome surprise. From American Hustle through No Hard Feelings, Lawrence was only in one comedy, Don't Look Up. This is the same woman who once told Zach Galifianakis he should be "off pudding" on Between Two Ferns. What I mean is, she is very funny. The trouble is she is also an excellent dramatic actress fully capable of a wide range of roles. She has four Academy Award nominations with one win after all.

I do think the best use of her is in these broad comedies, however, and that's not just because I'm desperate for big-budget comedies to return. She has the perfect sensibility for these movies. Lawrence is funny, charming, and incredibly relatable, so it's easy to fall in love with her characters. She doesn't take herself too seriously either, which is critical for comedy. I would like to see Jennifer Lawrence in more movies like No Hard Feelings, but I'll take her in whatever role she's willing to play as well.