Drinking Buddies (2013)

“That’s the problem with heartbreak, to you it’s like an atomic bomb and to the world it’s just really cliche, because in the end we all have the same experience.” – Kate

Number of Times Seen – 1  (8 Feb 2014)

Brief Synopsis – The story of a woman who works at a beer company and chronicles her friendships and relationships which all have a fine line between them.

My Take on it – This movie is a very well done drama that solely focuses on interpersonal relationships.

What’s amazing is that this one was done almost completely through improvisation; the writer/director Joe Swanberg wrote a basic outline of what he wanted to happen but allowed the actors to take control of their characters and speak their minds in trying to reach each of his milestones along the way.

This works extremely well throughout the movie.

Olivia Wilde is great here and we can really feel for her character and with everything that she goes through.

The one flaw I found in this movie was the fact that Swanberg leaves a few key scenes to the viewer’s imagination instead of showing us what happens.  Whenever he did that, he just cut the scene at a very crucial part and it felt that it was edited poorly.  I realize that he left those scenes to our imaginations on purpose, but doing that was a bit detrimental to the movie.

The cast is small but effective and the characters are fleshed out enough for us to care what happens to them.

Bottom Line – Very interesting drama about friendship and relationships that was cleverly done mostly with improvisation and without a script.  Recommended.

Rating – Globe Worthy

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