Paramount pulling for 'No Strings Attached'

By Sarah Sluis

Leading this weekend's releases is the Ashton Kutcher/Natalie Portman romantic comedy No Strings Attached (3,012 theatres). Although there's a cute supporting flock (Mindy Kaling, Lake Bell, Greta Gerwig), the romance between Portman and Kutcher is "laugh deficient," and "we're really not sure we'd want to go home with this movie," critic Frank Lovece concludes. Still, there's some intrigue to seeing Portman, a recent Golden Globe winner, in her first true romantic comedy. As an added bonus, her character is no shrinking violet. Without any similar competition in the marketplace, the laugher should approach $20 million.

Director Peter Weir takes on a true story that was later revealed to be fake in The Way Back (650 theatres). The film chronicles the pre-WWII journey of seven prisoners who escape a Soviet gulag and trek to India, a British territory. Critic Rex Roberts lamented that the movie falls just short. "All the elements for an award-garnering motion picture seem in place�an accomplished cast and crew, majestic landscapes to serve as stage sets, and a celebrated director whose sensibility perfectly suits the material�all except one, but one that makes all the difference: dramatic tension." The talented actors (including Ed Harris, Jim Sturgess, and Saoirse Ronan) and director partially save a movie that ends up being a "curious combination of the inspiring and the tedious."

The Company Men (106 theatres) is a recession-themed drama centered on downsizing among the privileged corporate set. Director John Wells has a strong television background, but "feature film technique seems to have baffled him," critic Daniel Eagan observes. While unemployed workers should be ripe for audience empathy, "the lead characters are so distinctly unlikeable and weak that the performers can't do much with their roles, no matter how carefully they act," Eagan concludes.

The Korean-language remake of the country's 1960s classic The Housemaid (2 theatres) debuts at IFC theatres. Critic Doris Toumarkine faulted the suspense tale because "it doesn't advance this sub-genre in any way or uncover anything more than familiar naughty behavior." That's true. However, I count myself as one of the audience members she suspected might "get a charge out of the relatively exotic modern Korean settings," which include depictions both of Korea's upper class and underclass.

On Monday, we'll see if audiences fell for No Strings Attached and if this debut film was able to beat the second weekend of comic book hit The Green Hornet.