Criticism of Do Me the Favor, Jennifer Lawrence flirting with laughter

Comedy, a genre that has given us such brilliant exponents since the beginning of cinema as the trinity of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd even the most vulgar or crude specters looking to laugh at our reality. Jennifer Lawrence continue experimenting this genre with Do me the favor, a crazy and incorrect comedy where the experienced actress goes for a flirt. Would someone tell him no?

What is Do Me a Favor about?

On the verge of losing the home she grew up in, Maddie (Lawrence) discovers an intriguing job classified ad: millionaire parents (Matthew Broderick and Laura Benanti) are looking for someone to “date” their introverted 19-year-old son, Percy, (Andrew Barth Feldman) before he leaves for college. To her surprise, Maddie soon discovers that dating Percy is no easy feat.

Jennifer Lawrence produces and stars Do me the favora risky comedy from the director Gene Stupnitsky (Good Boys, 2019) in what is his second feature film after a great career on television seeking to repeat the same black and incorrect comedy formula in which its protagonist makes the most of his timely comic vein and takes it to limits that we had not seen before in the genre.

Although it is not his first time causing laughter, his comedic roles tend to have a much more serious or realistic air. However, with Maddie we see this unleashed version that reminds us a bit of her role in American Scandal (Russell, 2013) but with disproportionate hedonism. In addition, her immaturity and inability to fall in love with her put her in constant trouble.

In contrast we have Barth Feldman as Percy as this young teenager absorbed in himself and the technology of his generation, someone who seems not to be interested in sex or coming out of his shell even if he has to do it soon due to leaving for university. . The work of this young actor complements wonderfully with that of Lawrence by showing himself as a boy out of those sex comedies of the 80s type Revenge of the Nerds (Kanew, 1984) or Porkys (Clark, 1983), but without their malice.

It is the great chemistry between the two of them that makes the most unusual moments of Hazme el Favor provoke laughter. Maddie’s voracity and seduction attempts constantly collide with the boy’s naivety, leading them to face all kinds of misadventures in which they will learn that despite their age difference, they have things in common.

Following the style that characterizes him, the director takes advantage of the sitcom without necessarily falling into the grotesque of films like those of Sandler and company, but in that irreverent tone that comes to surprise due to the ease with which his two protagonists are encouraged to participate in the follies.

In the script, which also makes eyes at that great cult classic of Tom Cruise called Risky Business (Brickman, 1983) but removing all the sordid from his approach, we see that generational clash that might seem uncomfortable but laughable despite the improbability of the situations. But the question of what would happen if the roles were reversed in the story does not cease to arise, a doubt that can cause some inevitable embarrassment.

Likewise, it shows the focus of two generations apparently lost in the middle of a world where they fear taking the next step and growing up. One absorbed by technology and the toxic overprotection of his parents that make him seclude himself in a world where he does not fit while the other seems not to leave his comfort zone due to his past and the weight it has about her.

It is in this dramatic approach that at times comes to the fore where Do me the favor He finds his Achilles heel, because we never managed to connect with that depth of his dilemmas, something that becomes like a crockery that is not funny towards the last act and that causes the tone of the film to lose its comic balance at times.

Despite these details, Lawrence shines as the completely cheeky ‘man-eater’ (in a perfect allusion to a certain Hall & Oates song) who ends up having a life lesson, showing that it is never too late to grow up and get out of our safe zones. . With a fulfilling comedy, sensual and without much complexity, Do me the favor It arrives to refresh a summer in which adult comedies are scarce with everything and their marked clichés, standing out above many others in the crowd.