'No Hard Feelings' review: Sex comedy with heart

At first blush, the premise of “No Hard Feelings” seems more creepy than funny: During a summer in Montauk, cash-strapped Uber driver Maddie answers an ad from two wealthy parents looking for someone to “date” their withdrawn, Princeton-bound teenager, Percy. Questions abound — about sex, class and basic morality — and an R-rated comedy like this one might seem ill-equipped to handle them.

What a pleasant surprise, then, to find that the movie has more going on under its hood. Inspired by an actual Craigslist post, “No Hard Feelings” has its share of nudity, vulgarity and zany slapstick, but it also treats its mismatched lovers as real people with real feelings. What’s more, it has two appealing stars in Jennifer Lawrence as Maddie and Andrew Barth Feldman (a Woodmere-raised actor known for his leading turn in Broadway’s “Dear Evan Hansen”) as Percy. Thanks to them, and an often insightful screenplay by director Gene Stupnitsky and John Phillips, “No Hard Feelings” turns out to be a reasonably entertaining and even sweet little comedy.

Lawrence normally doesn’t do little. As the dystopian rebel Katniss Everdeen in “The Hunger Games,” her cultural impact nearly rivaled that of Taylor Swift; she later won an Oscar for “Silver Linings Playbook.” Lawrence downsized for last year’s indie drama “Causeway,” but this is an even less likely project for an A-list star: the summer sex comedy. Her Maddie is a familiar archetype — the uncouth bad girl, not too far from the Cameron Diaz role in “Bad Teacher” (co-written by Stupnitsky) — but Lawrence wisely plays up the insecurities that make Maddie human. Flashing her legs and cooing suggestive single entendres to young Percy, there’s humiliation in her eyes. It’s come to this, she’s thinking.

Feldman, meanwhile, plays to his strengths: He’s about half Lawrence’s size and looks a third of her age. He’s perfect as a smart, sensitive kid whose helicopter parents (Matthew Broderick and Laura Benanti) have turned him into a near-agoraphobe. The movie throws Maddie and Percy into the usual outrageous situations (chased by cops, trashing a snooty soiree, etc.) but the best moments come whenever Maddie gets young Percy alone in a room. No matter what she does — twerking, stripping, begging for rough play — the kid recoils. “It’s like you’re trying to eat me!” he bleats. (On that note: Feldman shows off his musical chops with a lovely piano rendition of Hall & Oates’ “Maneater.”)

Filmed all over Montauk (and Nassau County), “No Hard Feelings” draws a bead on its setting: A place where moneyed folks like Percy can visit, but hardworking locals like Maddie must stay. It’s a welcome dose of realism, and we can see there’s more dividing Percy and Maddie than their temperaments. By the time the movie reaches its tender ending, “No Hard Feelings” might just win you over.

By Rafer Guzmán

rafer.guzman@newsday.com