Jennifer Lawrence is making a major career comeback. Though her most recent films, 2021’s Don’t Look Up and last year’s Causeway, have been competitors during awards season, her latest film appears to be a hard left turn. In No Hard Feelings, the Oscar-winner stars as a sex-positive young woman, who needs some extra cash—and is willing to go to extreme lengths to get that dough.
In the debut trailer for No Hard Feelings, Maddie (Lawrence) can’t catch a break. This is obvious from the start, which sees Maddie’s car being towed by Ebon Moss-Bachrach, a former fling who would maybe stop towing her if she actually texted him back. Too bad a handsome, naked Italian boy stumbles out of Maddie’s front door before she can get a good flirt in to save her car.
With the car gone, now all Maddie has left is her childhood home, but that’s about to go too. It’s hard to work odd jobs for Uber, TaskRabbit, and DoorDash without a car, so Maddie opts for a new gig. Gone are the days of working a temp job at an insurance firm, or getting a job in tech just to make the big bucks—no, instead, Maddie is hired to be the girlfriend of closed-off 19-year-old Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman).
It’s not that Percy wants a girlfriend. It’s that he really needs one. His parents (Matthew Broderick and Laura Benanti) hire Maddie to have a brief fling with their prudish son, because they’re “worried” about him. What a wild invasion of privacy! (I’m in.)
Here’s where the trailer spirals into complete chaos. Maddie attempts to begin a relationship “naturally” with Percy, but he can’t help but think she’s trying to kidnap him. He pepper sprays her when she tries to give him a ride in a giant, suspicious van. One might imagine that would be the end of their burgeoning flirtations; alas, Maddie has a mortgage to pay.
Maddie tries hard to win him over, but, as she says, “this kid is unfuckable.” He can’t hold down one sip of a Long Island Iced Tea. He accidentally punches her. He wears full suits on date night. Poor Percy needs a lesson in relationships, because he’s a complete trainwreck. But that’s what happens when you have helicopter parents!
No Hard Feelings is a major tonal shift for Lawrence, who won an Oscar for her rom-com drama Silver Linings Playbook a decade ago. This marks the third film (the other two aforementioned) in her big Hollywood return following Red Sparrow in 2018—and her first studio comedy, too.
No Hard Feelings will premiere in theaters on June 23.
