'No Strings Attached' review: New lay of the land

It takes a gimmicky premise, about two people who try to have a purely sexual relationship, and then fulfills it without distorting or bending the characters around a formula. In fact, the movie is just good enough to make us want more and to understand what's missing. What it lacks is a certain depth, not character detail but character insight - an extra something that might have allowed us to believe we're actually seeing humanity onscreen, rather than the mere and not-unpleasant spectacle of Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher trying to give each other a root canal with their tongues.

So think of "No Strings" as a so-so example of a really positive trend, which automatically makes it a little better than so-so. Emma and Adam don't meet cute. They meet when they are 14, at camp, when they're too young to be played by Portman and Kutcher. Already, she's a little remote; he's a little vulnerable. They meet again, over the years, as adults, and there's a connection between them. Then one day when they're around 30 - when she's a resident in medicine and he's on the crew of a TV show - circumstances throw them together, and they have sex. And they like it. The audience likes it, too. It's good for all concerned.

But Emma doesn't believe in relationships, or at least she's afraid of them. Plus, she's pulling long shifts at the hospital, and he's not dumb enough to ask for what she doesn't want to give. So when she proposes that they just have sex all the time, while agreeing not to get emotionally involved, he says yes, without more than a millisecond's deliberation. How that works out is the story of the movie.

"No Strings Attached" could have been fluffy nonsense about two airheads who gradually discover deeper feelings. But from the beginning, Adam likes Emma and would like a more traditional relationship. And Emma is not some shallow manipulator. She's funny, self-possessed and high-functioning, and of course she has Natalie Portman's smile, the all-knowing smile of a shrewd intelligence. Portman makes Emma's resistance to feeling interesting, like there's a story there - not a reason, not an explanation, but a depth to be explored.

She takes Emma as far as the script allows, but she can't inhabit what isn't there, and so "No Strings Attached" stays at a certain level and doesn't go beyond that. Which is to say, it remains an enjoyable romantic comedy for people who happen to like romantic comedies. Others, who don't like them generically, who only enjoy the best examples of the form, will be less enthralled.

By the way, why do people make fun of Ashton Kutcher and say he can't act? I wouldn't necessarily suggest him for, say, Geoffrey Rush's role in "The King's Speech," but within his sphere, he's an engaging, relaxed, seemingly sincere, tall, pleasant-looking guy who, when called upon, can look as if he's in love or in lust or both. He has never given a bad performance. He's never been less than an asset to every movie he's in, and that includes this one.

-- Advisory: Simulated sex, nudity, strong language.

E-mail Mick LaSalle at mlasalle@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page E - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle