Drinking Buddies

WARNING:  SPOILERS!!!

Last week Saturday Joe and I watched Drinking Buddies on demand.  The male lead, Jake Johnson, is in one of our favorite shows (New Girl - stay tuned for more on that) and the description implied a fun relationship movie with lots of drinking.  Well, they got one thing right...

The story revolves around Luke (Johnson) and Kate (Olivia Wilde; House) - best friends who work at a brewery.  Luke is quasi-engaged to his long-time girlfriend Jill (Anna Kendrick; Twilight, Up in the Air) while Kate is in a relationship with Chris (Ron Livingston; Office Space).  Luke and Kate hang out, drink and flirt.  What could possibly go wrong?

Well, interestingly enough, not much.  The whole time you watch the movie, you think Luke and Kate are going to ditch their respective significant others and declare their undying love for each other.  Or at least kiss.  I mean, what with the flirting and the drinking.  Plus, as When Harry Met Sally taught us, men and women can't be "just friends" (apparently) - attraction (i.e. sex) gets in the way.  Surely Jill and/or Chris will get ticked at Luke and Kate's relationship and deliver an ultimatum, or think there's something going on.  Wrong again!  The two couples go to Chris's beach front cabin for a weekend getaway and Jill and Chris decide to go for a hike.  THEY end up kissing after drinking some wine, and then go about their lives as normal.  Except Chris breaks up with Kate when they get back and Jill spontaneously decides to go on a trip to Costa Rica with her girlfriends.  Hmmmmm...

While Jill is gone, Luke hangs out with Kate (who won't admit that she's having a hard time coping with her break-up).  He helps her pack up her old apartment and after a long day falls asleep on her bed.  Kate gets in bed with him and...they sleep.  In the morning Luke tells Kate that they'll get her all moved in, clean up and go out to a nice dinner on him.  During the moving process, however, Luke slices open his hand on Kate's couch and gets into a fight with a random angry motorist who wants them to move the van.  Kate calls on their co-workers (including Dave, with whom she drunkenly hooked up immediately following her break-up) to help and Luke is clearly displeased with this.  After the guys leave Luke and Kate get into a shouting match about Kate's hook-up - this is the closest we get to an admission from either character that they are attracted to each other.  Luke is upset that Kate hooked up with Dave, Kate is upset that Luke is upset because she's single and can do whatever she wants whereas Luke is NOT single, to which Luke replies something along the lines of "Well, who slept with who".  He leaves, Kate cries.

When Luke gets back to his apartment he sees Jill has come home early from her trip.  She's been crying, and while she's cleaning up Luke's sliced hand she admits that she and Chris kissed and she feels awful about it.  Luke asks her if she loves Chris, she says no, and he forgives her.  The next day at work Kate is clearly still ticked at Luke, but they share a silent peace offering at lunch and all is forgiven.  And that's it.  The end.

Joe and I were pretty disappointed with this movie.  The camera work is reminiscent of a documentary, and the script has the same feel.  In fact, I'm pretty sure the actors weren't given a script so much as a description of how their conversations should go.  In some ways this wasn't bad as it really gave the actors a chance to show their ad libbing chops.  Unfortunately not everyone seemed up to the task.  Kendrick, who was excellent in 2009's Up in the Air (and for which she received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination), seemed a bit lost - her dialogue felt forced and unnatural.  But I digress...  The plot wasn't bad, except it left us feeling like there was no character growth or development.  The relationships stayed more or less the same and it just felt like we wasted an hour and a half watching people hang out and drink.  A lot.  (I'm not even going to get into Kate's very probable addiction to alcohol).  The movie is categorized as a comedy but, as Joe said, we didn't laugh any more than we would had we just sat around and talked.

The reviews for this film were great but, honestly, I really don't know why.  One review in particular lauded the movie for portraying the relationships in such a realistic way.  And that leads me to why I chose this movie for my first "actual" post.  Maybe I'm just weird, but I read and watch movies/TV shows because they're generally unrealistic in some way.  Suspension of Reality.  Even if a story doesn't have wizards or dragons or some element of what is traditionally thought of as "fantasy", as long as it's fiction there is a dose of non-reality.  I mentioned When Harry Met Sally earlier - as far as relationship comedies go, that's the golden standard in my book.  It's not fantasy in the traditional sense but it's not realistic either - in reality, if some lady fakes an orgasm in a public place it wouldn't be funny.  She'd probably get hauled off for disturbing the peace or something.  In a movie, though, it's hilarious.  Why?  Because it's not real life.  It's ridiculous.

Drinking Buddies isn't all bad.  It's rated R for language and some nudity.  Compared to other films, though, it's pretty clean (full-frontal Olivia Wilde notwithstanding).  Definitely not something to watch with the kids around but it doesn't leave you feeling uncomfortable (unlike Orange is the New Black - a Netflix series which will also come up in future posts).

All in all, if you enjoy obscure indie flicks that tend towards the realistic versus a sense of non-reality, then you'll probably enjoy Drinking Buddies.  If you're like me, though, I'd skip it.  But that's just my opinion.