No Hard Feelings is a fun and seemingly lighthearted coming of age story for a young man during the summer before he goes away to college. It’s charming, it’s funny, and there are some things in it that are weirdly uncomfortable.

No Hard Feelings has a lot going for it, but there are some odd issues. You can read the review below, or watch the video review here:

The premise of the film is that Maddie (a young-looking 32-year-old woman played by Jennifer Lawrence lives in Montauk, NY – a summer hot spot for the rich) loses her car, which is her only means of making enough money to pay off her skyrocketing property tax so that she doesn’t lose her family home. In desperation, she takes a job posted by a pair of helicopter parents who want her to break their son Percy out of his shell and have sex with him in return for their old car. … and that’s kind of weird right there, but they are both technically adults so……. Anyway…

We get these surprising and delightful moments between Maddie and Percy as they share personal and important things about themselves. As they get to know each other, you can’t help but to see how they develop a real affection for each other and a meaningful friendship that ultimately benefits them both. It really is a coming of a story for both Percy and Maddie, despite her being so much older than him.

The older woman fantasy trope for high school boys is a longtime Hollywood favorite in the teen film genre. However, if we were to gender swap the Maddie and Percy so that the shy teen was an 18-year-old girl whose parents were paying a 32 year old man to break her out of her shell and have sex before going off to college, you’d have a really different and really awkward feeling film that wouldn’t be socially light hearted, charming, and romantic. … and that’s another weird thing right there….

This brings me to thinking about how we treat young men, the expectations that we place on them, and the things we think are okay or even cool for a boy to do, but not for a girl. And that just doesn’t seem fair to young men who are expected to grow up and be kind, loving, and socially “normal” – whatever that means. Looking at the story and plot of No Hard Feelings through this lens is a lot more uncomfortable.

So, we have Maddie, a beautiful, working class, 32-year-old woman who never had a successful relationship, and who has no family she can turn to for help, no education or career path ahead of her, and no financial safety net for her future. She is literally alone in the world, and Percy helps her to break through the fear that has kept her from taking a chance and striking out on her own. Knowing him, gives her the courage to open herself to new possibilities.

Without giving any real spoilers, one of the things about Maddie’s story that bothers me is that her growth basically has her opening up and taking a chance on herself, but the film doesn’t put time into developing this part of her character. So, while we see Percy’s successful future ahead of him, we don’t really know what chance she’s taking, what future she’s heading toward, or what “success” would be for her character.

I left the theater feeling good and enjoying the film, but as I drove home thinking about how it ended, I was haunted by the idea that this was Percy’s summer of upward transformation, but we don’t know where Maddie is going? If we consider their futures 20 years from now, we can imagine Percy being a rich thirty-something, Princeton grad while Maddie is basically the same person, just older because the screenwriters didn’t leave us with an equal sense of her future or her potential. It’s just sad because this was as much her coming of age story as it was his.

The last thing I want to mention is the helicopter parents. You know, those parents who do everything for their kids. No Hard Feelings does a good job of showing us what these parents are like and the impact they have on their children’s development. I loved how the film shifts the responsibility to Percy to help his parents have their own “coming of age” moment, which forces them to take a step back so that he can figure things out for himself. I don’t think parenting is easy and this film highlights how easy it is to fall into the trap of over-parenting out of love.

And a special shout out to Matthew Broderick, the teen icon from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I feel like he brings the film full circle because he was once the young teen actor in these coming-of-age movies, and he does a fantastic job at playing a modern-day helicopter dad. The irony here is fantastic. Kudos to whoever made that fantabulous casting decision.

Overall, I think most people will enjoy No Hard Feelings, and I hope that you’ll think about the ending. I think that’s actually where the richness of the film lives as it makes us think about these two characters, their ages, and the different roads ahead for them both … as well as how they may or may not fit into each other’s lives in the future.