Olivia Thirlby is in talks to join the cast of “Friends With Benefits” errr, the untitled romantic comedy starring and Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman according to TheWrap.
The cast is kind of excellent, but here’s why we’re afraid: Ivan Reitman is directing and he hasn’t made a romantic comedy, let alone a good movie in about twenty years (his last good film is 1990s “Kindergarten Cop”; why the geeks are so keen on him directing “Ghostbusters III” is a mystery).
Another worry — aside from the always annoying Ashton Kutcher — is the watering down of the concept. Originally titled, “Fuckbuddies,” the film then became the more audience friendly, “Friends With Benefits,” but now it had to even drop that anemic title because there’s already a movie titled that in production (with Justin Timberlake) and an TV show that just went to pilot.
The cast was also recently rounded-out by Greta Gerwig (who was wonderful in Noah Baumbach’s difficult, “Greenberg”), Kevin Kline, Ophelia Lovibond (the upcoming “London Boulevard”) and Ben Lawson (we read the script and have basically figured out who plays who).
So what do we think of Thirlby joining the cast as Portman’s sister? Fantastic as far as we’re concerned and she’d be leading this film if we had out druthers. Why she’s not a huge breakout star yet is a mystery to us, but perhaps the 23-year-old star just needs to age a little so she can play leading ladies (she was poised to breakout in “Pineapple Express,” in the summer of 2008, but the filmmakers reneged on her and put bland Amber Heard in the role instead and we’ve gotta say, bad call). She was also excellent in “Snow Angels” and “Juno” of course (but no really, she’s tremendous in that David Gordon Green film).
The film is said to be an “an inverse ‘When Harry Met Sally’ about two people whose no-strings-attached relationship is threatened when they begin to develop true romantic feelings for one another.”
All this worry stated, the script, written by Diablo Cody “fempire” friend Liz Meriwether, is one that is a recent favorite of Playlist members that have read it. The film is set to shoot any day now and already has a release date on January 7, 2011.
