Chemistry is the usually misfiring engine that drives ro mantic comedies, so it’s a pleasure to re port that Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis are practically combustible together in “Friends With Benefits.” It far outclasses Hollywood’s other inquiry into this phenomenon this year, the crass and mercifully forgotten “No Strings Attached.”
Besides having far more compatible leads than the nonstarter combo of Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman, Will Gluck’s bright screwball farce has witty dialogue that sparkles, at least by debased 21st-century standards.
It also endearingly manages the postmodern trick of mocking all the cliches of the genre — meet-cutes, dysfunctional relatives, the gay best friend, celebrity cameos, real estate porn, a tourist’s-eye view of cities and reunions in public places — at the same time it offers them up for our approval.
PHOTOS: ‘FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS’ FILMING IN NEW YORK
Timberlake, who may be the most self-effacingly ironic actor working in films today, plays a California Web site designer who is recruited for a high-ranking job at GQ magazine (one of countless products and films plugged herein with a wink) by Kunis’ corporate headhunter.
Initially greeting him from an airport luggage conveyor belt, Kunis quickly determines that because they are both commitment-phobic (for the usual cliché reasons) they would make perfect sex buddies. They take a “no relationship” vow on an iPad Bible app.
Their couplings — involving strategic partial nudity in vast Manhattan apartments with killer views their characters could never afford in real life — have genuine heat, and their sometimes racy exchanges have some zing.
He: “I’m from LA. I like my open spaces.”
She: “What are you? A gazelle? You LA folk are so . . . cute.”
The dysfunctional relatives are played by pros: Patricia Clarkson (her divorced, sexually inappropriate hippie mom) and Richard Jenkins (his divorced dad, who has Alzheimer’s).
Another Oscar nominee, Woody Harrelson, plays a sports editor and Timberlake’s gay wingman, who is never too busy to ferry Justin across the Hudson in his motorboat. Olympic snowboarder Shaun White contributes the requisite, self-mocking celebrity cameo as himself.
While the leads make fun of the fake LA-for-Manhattan tourist locales of a movie-within-the-movie, “Friends With Benefits,” of course, wallows in the real thing. Among other things, there’s a musical number set in Times Square and an amusing episode involving the Hollywood sign when they spend a weekend in Los Angeles.
The climax of the fake movie with Jason Segel (Rashida Jones, Emma Stone and Andy Samberg also turn up briefly) amusingly prefigures the real one, which offers another production number.
Timberlake, who sings a few bars there and elsewhere, is an appealing presence. Still, his performance in “The Social Network” suggests he’s more interesting as seducer than seduced (as he also is in “Bad Teacher” with Cameron Diaz, with whom he has absolutely no chemistry).
Briskly directed by Gluck — whose superior “Easy A” was one of last year’s best sleepers — “Friends With Benefits” announces that Kunis (who came close to stealing “Black Swan” in a supporting role) is a genuine movie star to watch.
Then again, it’s hard not to love someone who looks at a poster for the abysmal rom-com “The Awful Truth” and exclaims: “Shut up, Katherine Heigl, you stupid liar!”