Fresh and Exciting

Absolutely the worst movie.

A Masterpiece!

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

To rate this one star is seriously REACHING. I decided to watch because of the great cast and storyline. Well, was I ever disappointed. Olivia Wilde and Jake Johnson act like immature children who shouldn't be in relationships to begin with. Anna Kendrick's character is obviously not a good match for Johnsons. BUT for some reason they stay together? It's an unrealistic view of relationships. At least, no relationship I'd like to be involved in. I'm a young, married person. I find the fact that not ONE person in this movie was able to stay loyal, quite disgusting and disappointing. I understand wanting to have fun and drink, but this is extreme. Wilde and Johnson are both alcoholics. The ending is one of the worst I've seen. SPOILER ALERT: It doesn't seem like Wilde and Johnson end up together, but really, we have no idea. It's left to interpretation, which can end up being intriguing (Inception) OR horrible - this film. Don't waste your time like I did.

Drinking BuddiesIt may resemble too much to the real world and still offer us enough reason to hang on to it as it is so perfectly written that its tone is surprisingly acceptable.

Found this browsing Netflix, and thought it might be decent based on who was in it. Not always the best guide to a movie's quality, but sometimes it works. In this case, it worked. I'm always a bit surprised at how much more realistic these improvised movies are than many scripted movies. I guess the actors just know how they'd react in certain situations. Needless to say, I found the performances flawless and very true-to-life. In one scene involving Jake and Olivia arguing, the facial expressions and reactions were so familiar, I could easily insert myself and any of the women I've had relationships with into the moment. And the ending is much more realistic than the feel-good 'Hollywood ending' (though I like those at times too). This isn't an action-packed thriller, and not really a comedy, but if you enjoy films depicting real life, this is one of the better ones.

Drinking Buddies is a movie about what happens when you are in a relationship that is, well, shaky. The main characters, Luke and Kate, both have significant others, but in their jobs in a brewery they are constantly together and will, after hours, engage in heavy drinking and substantial flirting. They seem to have a mutual agreement to keep it innocent, but the problem is that this is nonetheless a form of infidelity--they share a bond that clearly intrudes on their relationships. As the movie progresses, the pair take their significant others to a weekend at a beach house, but end up spending significant quality time with each other. Meanwhile, a certain chemistry emerges between the significant others, Jill and Chris, and the question of who really belongs with whom supplies the dramatic tension for the rest of the movie.Drinking Buddies is an unusual movie on two specific levels. First, it is a romantic comedy, but it does not really follow the formula. Rather, it is interested primarily in the more subtle forms in which relationships sustain themselves, break down, and clunk along again. The plot, such as it is, is not neat and tidy, and the drama is real drama because of it. We end up not looking for the end of this movie--rather we relish the complexities of the individual situations.Also unusual is that Drinking Buddies adopts a cinematic style that complements this quality of ambiguity. The style is what some describe as naturalistic--basically you really feel like you are watching real human beings. The style is achieved because most of the scenes are improvised--rarely do you ever get the sense that someone is reciting a script. Rather, it feels like you are watching the quartet really live their lives, and so the drama never feels like it is following a formula.The result is a movie that is entertaining, but also interesting. Because the rom-com is in this case so true to life, you really are not certain in which direction it is going to go. The tension is very substantial, because Kate feels like a real person who is going through real hurt, and her redemption is largely that she is a real person who can live through the ambiguities. In this sense, the movie is quite profound, because this is what most of us do every day.