The natural, easy banter between Kate (Olivia Wilde) and Luke (New Girl’s Jake Johnson), two friends working at a craft brewery, draws a barely there line over whether these are co-workers or soulmates. There’s just the small issue over the fact that both are involved with other people. Chris (Ron Livingston) and Jill (Anna Kendrick) radiate seriousness compared to their significant others and seem far more compatible for each other. It’s an obvious observation revealed to the foursome (some more consciously than others) during a couples’ outing to a cabin over a weekend. Couples stuck in a cabin together tends not to end well.
Drinking Buddies offers up a hip, fishbowl quality where there exists an awareness of watching an uncertainty between friendship and emotional intimacy unfold, screaming of privacy. Kate and Luke’s charming, jokey rapport is so effortless that even their beer drinking cycles are very much in tandem, as in a constant flow. The round-the-clock stream of booze and conversation made up of the stuff we can only get away with while we’re young enough and sort of single.
The sting of being the outlier in a love triangle is a running theme in the film, as well as the complicated idea of who the real outlier is. Unexpressed attraction that underlies the casual conversation is never through conventional awkward interruption. It’s pretty much always there, present and subtly suggested, but never mutually acknowledged (maybe just once).
Indie director Joe Swanberg, known for his understated style, very much brings a similar feel to hipster-y Drinking Buddies.The minimal details and improvisational dialogue taking place in day-to-day life provides for more insight into the characters and the relationships vs. the reality crashing melodrama of a standard rom-com.
Who Should See It: Extended flirty, foreplay in the form of charming conversation thrust in with some subtle, unintentional slash intentional physical contact.
Who Shouldn’t See It – If you’re looking for a bubblegum romance filled with grand cinematic gestures.
Review by Sandy Chung. Follow her on Twitter @sndychng
