Drinking Buddies: Great Performances, But A Bit of Paint Drying, Too

Drinking Buddies, written and directed by Joe Swanberg, is a movie pretending to be an indie [...]

By Emily Donn

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Drinking Buddies

, written and directed by Joe Swanberg, is a movie pretending to be an indie romantic comedy, but is actually just a slow moving film where nothing much happens. It tells the story of the will-they-or-won't-they relationship between brewery co-workers Kate (Olivia Wilde) and Luke (Jake Johnson) over a short period of time. Kate is apparently the only woman working at the brewery and handles this by being "one of the guys." She matches her male co-workers beer for beer and quip for quip. However, what seems like casual joking and banter with the other men at work is somehow flirtatious and more playful when it is with Luke. The problem is, Kate is in a relationship a man named Chris (Ron Livingston), while Luke is living with his girlfriend Jill (Anna Kendrick). When both couples decide to spend a weekend together at a beachside cabin owned by Chris's family, a single event affects both relationships in a way that might leave the door open for Kate and Luke, if only they could both stop joking around and actually take a serious look at what they want in life. All four leads deliver very good performances, heightened by the fact that the film is mostly improvised which makes the dialogue very true. However, none of the characters are terribly strong or interesting; they are too busy being "real people."

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Kate is especially lacking in depth once it becomes clear that she doesn't just joke around at work or with Luke, but every waking moment of the day. She refuses to face the seriousness of anything besides her job, whether it is her relationship issues with Chris or whatever chemistry she might have with Luke. She is actually incapable of being serious, to the point that when Luke hurts himself helping her move a couch, she is more concerned with what to do with the couch and her own inability to deal with blood then the fact that her friend is seriously hurt, and she offers little to no help. Luke is a bit more serious at times, though he usually saves that for Jill. His reluctance to discuss marriage and constant beer drinking make it easy to assume he is the stereotypical man-child, but he's actually a nice guy who knows when it is time for the joking to stop. Jill and Chris both seem to exist only to create a barrier between Luke and Kate. The movie has funny moments and a clear target audience; it was more common to hear one single person laughing (the same guy each time) then multiple people. It dragged most of the time and felt significantly longer than the 90 minutes it actually runs. For people who want an easy-on-the-brain date movie or romantic comedy, Drinking Buddies is as good as anything else. But for those of us who like our movies full of explosions, superheroes, zombies, and serial killers, this is not the movie for you. Emily Donn is an actress who lives in L.A. and occasionally also puts words on paper. One day she would like to be on the sort of TV show that will keep her invited to Comic-con 40 years after its too early cancellation.

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