MOVIE REVIEW – DRINKING BUDDIES

RATING – 4/10

GENRE – Drama, Romance

DIRECTOR – Joe Swanberg

Spoiler Alert: Parts of the story may be revealed.

PLOT – Kate, played by Olivia Wilde and Luke, portrayed by Jake Johnson are co-workers in a Chicago based brewery, where Kate makes a few random calls every now and then, Luke does seem to do some work at times but mostly the ‘work’ is limited to drinking and flirting which carries on to the wee hours in the night.

Both of them are in committed relationships and their better halves meet at a party organized by the brewery. Everybody strike a friendship and they find themselves heading off for a weekend vacation to Kate’s boyfriend’s (Chris, played by Ron Livingston) family home. Luke’s girlfriend Jill played by Anna Kendrick and Chris strike a chord when they find out that they have similar interests.

Chris and Jill head over for a trek in the woods, leaving Luke and Kate behind, where they spend time playing Blackjack and flirting. During the trek forbidden events transpire between Chris and Jill. As a repercussion of these events, Chris breaks up with Kate giving her cliche reasons for breaking up. Jill, who is now ridden with guilt, decides not to tell Luke about the unfortunate turn of events. She goes to Mexico to visit an old friend while Luke stays back, helping his best friend Kate move into a new apartment. During the shifting, the best friends find themselves in a heated argument and Kate asks him to, “Go back to his girlfriend”.

When Luke gets home, he finds a crying Jill who has cut short her vacation to tell him the truth. Luke ends up forgiving Jill and his feud with Kate is also sorted out the next day at work.

REVIEW – Yes, that is how short and abrupt the ending was. I think the director completely lost the plot and had no sense of direction to the story. Yes, people cheat, friends fight and people may forgive them. There is nothing in the script that captures the audience’s attention. The film’s run time is just 90 minutes and it finished before I could reach the bottom of my popcorn tub!

The acting is average, especially when it comes to Olivia Wilde who I personally thought came always drunk to work and her playing with her hair in almost every scene was rather annoying.

The story is something weird and I could not think of a single reason what exactly Joe Swanberg was up to while writing the script. The movie is also poorly directed and again, I fail to come up with a reason as to why one would even bother making a film out of a story that had nothing in it.

My verdict, the story has absolutely zilch content in it and is not worth the watch. Avoid it like a plague and save your precious time and money! 

DISCLAIMER: This review is ONLY a personal opinion about the movie. It is NOT a paid (cash or kind) review of the movie, OR endorsed by any person (living or dead) associated to the movie in any way.

The promotional poster image is a property of its respective owner(s). Image has been used only for illustrative purposes and I do not claim ownership of the content of the image.