No Strings Attached

In No Strings Attached, Natalie Portman plays Emma, an emotionally fragile doctor who’s just way too busy for a boyfriend. Ashton Kutcher plays Adam, the budding screenwriter with a famous Dad, with whom she negotiates a kind of “friends with benefits” relationship. He wants more, she can’t handle more…..ah, you know the whole damn movie is about making her change her mind?

But it works, not just because of the cracking chemistry between the stars (which is palpable – Ashton is beyond his best here, and Natalie is, well, sublime – but because of a whole host of loopy supporting turns and zany scenarios that are by turns both ridiculously unlikely but completely right. It’s very LA too – one scene takes place outside the Los Angeles County Museum of Art – somewhere I visited for the first time when stranded by the Icelandic volcano last year.

OK, I’m man enough to admit it: I really LOVED it. I thought it was smart, funny, sweet, sexy and completely ludicrous. I even laughed out loud a few times – which was a bit embarrassing on a 16-hour Emirates flight in the middle of the night.