You’ve seen a movie like No Hard Feelings many times before, give or take a few details here and there. The film harkens back to the heydays of 90s and early 2000’s romantic comedies where the plot rarely changes but the jokes and the performances from its leads carry it across the finish line. It’s the kind of film that Hollywood has all but stopped releasing theatrically today, a raunchy R-rated comedy that plays much better in a packed room full of strangers than at home on a streaming service.

Jennifer Lawrence, a likable and engaging screen presence in blockbusters and prestige productions alike, is well worth the price of admission alone. She plays Maddie, a Montauk native who scrapes by as an Uber driver living in her deceased mother’s home. Left without a car after failing to pay her property taxes, her financial woes lead her to a Craigslist ad from a wealthy couple offering a deal that would be too good to be true, if it wasn’t happening in a movie. They’re willing to give away their old Buick if the right girl will take their antisocial son Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman) on a few dates before he leaves for college.

What Maddie perceives as a slam dunk – after all, she’s no stranger to casual flings – becomes much more complicated once she sees how sheltered Andrew really is. Feldman and Lawrence are delightful together, his sweetness and naïveté mixing nicely with her bluntness and what’s-in-it-for-me attitude. She aggressively seeks to pop his cherry while he wants to take things slow and get to know her first. We know that his romantic nature will slowly but surely make its way through her defenses, but it’s an enjoyable ride nonetheless. Shallow as it is, the film’s most well-conceived idea is in how Maddie goes from viewing sex and relationships as transactional to something worth investing in.

Whatever shortcomings the plot has throughout No Hard Feelings, it’s overcome by Lawrence’s completely committed performance. She makes nearly every line reading a scream, and never shies away from a physical gag. Yes, the script, written by Gene Stupnitsky (who also directs) and John Phillips, mostly treats Maddie and Percy as archetypes, never really getting to the heart of who they are, what scares them, or what they dream of. The film never really subverts expectations or deals with weighty ideas, instead choosing to take the path of least resistance with its rom-com formula. And while No Hard Feelings really earns its R rating – mostly thanks to one skinny dipping scene – it doesn’t lean into the gross-out humor or adult-centric comedy in the way that have made films like American Pie or There’s Something About Mary into classics of the genre.

Still, I remain thankful that No Hard Feelings exists in its current form. It is true that you can watch any number of classic rom-coms with the click of a button, but there’s something irreplaceable about seeing Jennifer Lawrence getting maced while trying to seduce Andrew Barth Feldman, her desperation on full display as much as her pomposity, in a crowded theater. Maybe it’s not thoughtful or original enough to save the genre altogether, but in an era where half of the multiplex screens will be showing the latest half-developed big budget IP-driven spectacle, at the very least, it’s worth 103 minutes of your time.

No Hard Feelings will be released in theaters nationwide on June 23.

OSCAR POTENTIAL:

• None. Much as the Academy loves Jennifer Lawrence, they abhor comedies in an equal measure.