Film Reviews

Emma (Natalie Portman) and Adam (Ashton Kutcher) are two friends who keep bumping into each other after years apart. Emma and Adam meet again through their mutual friend Patrice, when Emma is a resident in a local hospital and Adam is the assistant on a High School Musical-like TV-show, with aspirations of becoming a script writer. Adam takes down Emma’s phone number, but forgets to call her.

Six months later, Adam becomes distraught when he learns that his eccentric father (Kevin Kline)—who used to be the star of a TV show called “Great Scott”—is having a relationship with Adam’s ex-girlfriend Vanessa (Ophelia Lovibond). Determined to ‘get back on the wagon’, Adam starts calling every woman in his cell phone. The next day, he wakes up after a drunken night to find out that he text-messaged Emma and came to the home she shares with some other residents, including Patrice (Greta Gerwig). Emma leads Adam to her bedroom to retrieve his pants, when the two of them wind up having sex.

Because Emma does not believe in love – she believes that ‘no two people were meant to be together forever' – Emma proposes that they have casual sex with each other, setting some ground rules for each other to prevent their relationship from becoming too serious. At first things go well, but then Adam starts becoming jealous of the possibility of Emma being with another doctor, Sam. Although denying that he is jealous, Adam starts presenting her with gifts, which she rebuffs.

Adam becomes more distraught when his father asks him to dinner with Vanessa on Adam’s birthday, where they announce that they’re planning to have a baby together. Emma, who accompanied Adam to the dinner, berates the couple while defending Adam. Adam eventually convinces her to go out with him on a date on Valentine’s Day. Things come to a head when Emma starts becoming too uncomfortable about being on a date with Adam. Adam tells Emma that he loves her, but she grows angry, telling him he should go out with another woman who ‘isn’t going to hurt you’. Adam drops Emma off at her hospital and drives off.

Six weeks later, a script Adam had written for his show and submitted through Lucy (Lake Bell), the production assistant on the show, is being filmed, and Adam gets a writing job on the show. Emma, meanwhile, has become distraught at not being with Adam, which is compounded by her younger sister, Katie's (Olivia Thirlby) upcoming wedding the next day and her widowed mother (Talia Balsam) arriving with a new boyfriend.

Label: bumping, distraught, having sex