Drinking Buddies

★★★

Dir: Joe Swanberg

(2013)

Mumble-core affiliate Joe Swanberg turns up the volume and tightens the dialogue in this sweet look at relationships that never could be. Olivia Wilde turns in a great performance as Kate, the sole female working at a boutique micro brewery in Chicago; A very social drinker who gets through her days on the highs of a playful flirtatious relationship with Luke (Jake Johnson), a flannel shirt wearing beardy with a goofy sense of humour which nearly trumps her own. The brewers respective partners are slightly more serious and far more suited; Anna Kendrick's prim Jill and the hugely underrated Ron Livingstone's methodical Chris gravitate immediately towards each other with as much chemistry as Luke and Kate and a short weekend away together brings in some inevitable problems.

Swanson focuses on a difficult situation, a situation one would think would be fraught with heartbreak and fights, with a good-natured air; He sees alcohol as the social lubricant it most certainly is and the film plays out in a free and easy way, like everyone involved might have had a couple at lunch. The performances are the hight of Swanberg's film however with all four cast members adding a lightness and an honesty to the script which could have weighed in much heavier and far more cynical in the wrong hands.

Drinking Buddies is a breezy film; It's not offensive or hard-hitting and for that there is a certain tension missing from the foursome's predicament but where the drama is lacking the comedy is not. The director uses the tropes of the romantic comedy to wrong foot his audience on many occasions with scenes consistently twisting miraculously away from the obvious. His loose improvisational style suits the sometimes affected Wilde down to the ground, delivering easily her finest performance yet. Drinking Buddies isn't a life changing boozy weekend but it is a very enjoyable quick one down at the local.