In No Strings Attached, the romantic comedy out in theaters today, Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher have a lot of sex. That is, in fact, the premise of the movie: two people who really like each other but who have opted not to date, having lots and lots of sex. (Will they fall in love? Wait and see!) It’s been a particularly randy couple of months for Portman: In addition to Kutcher, Portman’s had an onscreen oral-sex sesh with Kutcher’s That ‘70s Show co-star Mila Kunis in Black Swan, rubbed up against Vincent Cassel in the same film, and got knocked up in real life by a person who, as she was so quick to point out at the Golden Globes, “totally wants to sleep with me!” With all this overheated Portman action going around, we figured this was as good a time as any to dig deep, go to the videotape, and assess: Which of Portman’s onscreen sex partners did it best? In retrospect, she hasn’t had the best luck.
Technique: Be a kind, loving father whose psyche is shattered after being tortured as a prisoner of war; come home with dangerous case of PTSD; get insanely jealous; wave around a gun.
Defining Quality: Unfounded jealousy
Overview: Maguire’s character plays Portman’s husband, a good man who upon returning home has a hard time readjusting to normal life. It’s not entirely his fault, but anyone who holds his family at gunpoint is not going to be high on this list.
Seduction Technique: Get to know Portman when you are way, way too young to be considered a viable sex partner; somehow transcend the inherent creepiness of this (with the help of the Force?), marry, impregnate, and then disappoint her by turning very mean; have a rat tail.
Defining Quality: Bad Dialogue
Overview: Given director George Lucas’s track record with actors, the truest thing we can say about the melodramatic preordained, ill-fated love affair between Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala is that it would have been sexier if they were both robots.
Seduction Technique: Be willing to jump through a window to help Portman deliver her baby in a Wal-Mart; be sad and silent and have put off all your own dreams to take care of your alcoholic sister; be lovesick; be a Bowdoin drop out.
Defining Quality: Adoration.
Overview:The good guy played by James Frain silently pines for Natalie Portman’s ridiculously named Novalee for years. When they finally sleep together, after a funeral, he tells her he loves her and she doesn’t say a word. Unlike Ashton Kutcher’s character in No Strings Attached, he responds to this by moping, not bringing her a bouquet of carrots.
Seduction Technique: Be around when your brother isn’t; fix things.
Defining Quality: Sadness
Overview: Gyllenhaal and Portman’s characters only share a kiss. It’s a good one, but it only happens because Tobey Maguire’s character is presumed dead. Bummer.
Technique: Be King of England.
Defining Quality: Monarchy.
Overview: Eric Bana’s Henry VII seduces Mary Boleyn (Scarlett Johansson), before setting his eye on Portman’s Anne. They have a passionate go at it, before he rapes her and cuts off her head. If a dude will have you executed, it doesn’t really matter how good he is in the sack, even if he did break away from the Catholic Church on your behalf.
Seduction Technique: Constantly berate Portman to loosen up; command she go home and masturbate.
Defining Quality: Control.
Overview: While it ultimately turns Portman’s Nina on to have her company director Thomas (Cassel) tell her what do, he’s a bit bossy, no?
Seduction Technique: Be a member of the Catholic Church who has no ethical qualms about seducing models while they are wrongfully incarcerated.
Defining Quality: Angst.
Overview: In this period drama, Bardem’s Brother Lorenzo goes to “help” the artist’s model played by Portman, and “winds up” seducing, impregnating, and abandoning her instead. And yet, to get laid in jail, you must have pretty tight seduction game.
Seduction Technique: Clean room; bathe; cue music; accept flowers; take instructions; have the same taste as Wes Anderson.
Defining Quality: Twee Submission.
Overview: In this Wes Anderson short (a supplement to The Darjeeling Limited), Natalie Portman comes by Jason Schwartzman’s hotel room and bosses the hell out of him. (Though, unlike the aforementioned Cassel, she does stop short of insisting he practice masturbating.)
Technique: Hit on strippers you know. Be willing to ask them “What does your cunt taste like?”
Defining Quality: Vengeance.
Overview: Pissed that Julia Roberts is running around with Jude Law, Clive Owen has a one-night stand with Portman after picking her up at her strip club. They don’t like each other all that much, but hate sex is a powerful thing.
Seduction Technique: Listen to emo songs; have emo conversations in waterless bathtubs; scream emo feelings into rainy quarries; have emo sex.
Defining Quality: Emo.
Overview: While Zach Braff’s Andrew is a sweet guy who is super into Portman’s manic pixie dreamgirl par excellence, and the two would totally make sweet, sweet love with lots of eye contact, intensity, and hopes for the future, points have to be deducted for the Zach Braff of it all. Honestly, it speaks to the real duds on this list that we’re forced to place him so high.
Technique: Help Portman when she gets hit by a car, then write a book about her, then ruthlessly cheat on her for years.
Defining Quality: Manipulation.
Overview: Jude Law’s character is torn between Portman’s and Julia Roberts’s, basically only staying with Portman when Julia’s not having him. Still, Portman’s character is always willing to take him back, leading us to conclude he must be good for something.
Seduction Technique: Get Portman wasted, go back to mom’s place, have pretty loud oral sex.
Defining Quality: Passionate Delusion.
Overview: To be fair, this hookup happens in Portman’s Nina’s imagination. While that’s still to Kunis’s character’s credit (without doing a thing other than being her flirty, sexy self, she triggers the lust Nina needs to find her inner — cue over-the-top soundtrack! — Black Swan), it’s not the same as the real thing, so it can’t take the top spot.
Seduction Technique: Get drunk, remove clothes, start crying about ex-girlfriend; then show willingness to have sex any time, any place with emotional cripple, while simultaneously dealing with her inexplicable hang-ups.
Defining Quality: Enthusiasm.
Overview: Kutcher’s Adam is down to get down at all times, and he likes to make jokes and fall in love while he does it. More definitively, according to Portman’s character, he is “The best sex I’ve ever had.”
