


Be honest. It’s the alliterative, titillating headline that grabbed you, right?
Do yourself a favor. DON’T Google “movie with a talking penis.” There are a LOT more of those than you think, so no, it wasn’t invented with that “Pam & Tommy” series on Hulu.
“Hard Feelings” is an Around the World with Netflix teen sex comedy from Germany about a couple of kids not-really fretting about giving up their “v-cards” (they’re virgins) until a lightning strike allows their respective vulva and penis to start chatting, crudely lobbying for a little action — ANY action.
Whatever bestie/girl-next-door Paula (Cosima Henman) thinks about this turn of events, this is the LAST problem Charly (Tobias Schäfer) needs. He’s been nicknamed “Charly No D–k” since a middle school pantsing at the pool. He’s been traumatized ever since. Charly can barely stand to hit the water in swim class.
The taunting is relentless, and God forbid it cause some fresh mishap. That will go viral in a flash, furthering his descent into social outcast Hell.
But that lightning strike adds a new level of ostracizing. He’s now having shouting matches with his chatty, pushy penis, whose name is “Willy,” we learn. Willy, voiced by Tom Beck in the original German soundtrack (you can watch/listen to the film with subtitles, or dubbed) bullies the “boner loner” to act on his carnal urges, to talk to the prettiest and meannest girl in school (Samirah Breuer), or maybe the cute French exchange student (Vivien König).
Paula? Willy wouldn’t mind coming on to “little itty bitty t—ies.”
And Paula, in a pleasant screenwriterly equal-representation turn, is hearing the same patter from “Hoo ha,” aka “V,” her vagina.
“No, I’m your VULVA.”
Hoo ha is all about sexual release, about grooming “down there” and buying the right underwear for such an occasion. Willy’s passing on simular comically crude advice.
But events conspire to put these two into situations with unsuitable partners thanks to Charly’s reputation-changing viral moment and Paula’s too-public shopping for a way-too-sexy bustier. With final exams set to determine their whole future, Charly’s parents (Doris Golpashin and Alex Stein) about to break up and Paula taking sex advice from her wise-ass 10 year-old (Youtube trained) baby sister (Yuna Bennett), how will this all work out for the best?
The “view of another culture” material stuffed into this farce is fascinating, although one can easily read too much in a school that allows the brutal taunting Charly endures to go on, the parents who never ever knock on bathroom or bedroom doors and constantly interrupt whatever their kids are up to, and parents who require no “big conversation” before their child has her or his first sexual experience under their roof while the parents are at home.
The unequal treatment of each character’s new “reputation” is pretty much a global curse. He gets high fives as a playa, she is “slut” shamed.
“Hard Feelings” has a bit of nudity and a lot of vulgarisms packed around its sexual education content, and some of the Willy/Hoo-ha talk is damned funny, in German or in English.
“I would NEVER leave you hangin.’ Little penis joke, there!”
Cute gags including Marlene and her mean girls always chanting “No shaming” in unison after every instance where they’re laughing at shaming, or doing the shaming themselves.
The picture covers all the over-familiar teen sex comedy bases, with the only added bonus coming from wisecracking voice-over commentary from chatterbox genitalia (Monika Oschek is the ever-thirsty voice of “Hoo ha,” aka “V.”).
That over-familiarity is packaged in a film with a somewhat meandering pace, and the clumsy, obvious way everything is resolved is given away in the first act.
If they’re being honest, Netflix is trotting this title out in the US so it will be confused with the Jennifer Lawrence adult-with-a-young-guy sex farce, “No Hard Feelings,” due out in June.
But those reservations aside, “Hard Feelings” still manages to find a few outrageous laughs. So if your teens’ doors are locked and you hear laughter instead of, say, other incriminating sounds, it’s nothing to worry about. They’re just “watching a foreign film on Netflix,” folks.
Rating: TV-MA, sex, nudity and lots of profane talk about both
Cast: Tobias Schäfer, Cosima Henman, Samirah Breuer, Alex Stein, Doris Golpashin, Louis Jérôme Wagenbrenner, Yuna Bennett, Vivien König and Jasmin Shakeri.
Credits: Directed by Granz Henman, scripted by Alexander Dydyna. A Netflix release.
Running time: 1:43