Tiny spoiler-baby is ahead, you’ve been warned.
Two posts a week, that was my promise to myself and therefore you guys are getting two posts on this fine Sunday. One I already published, and this is obviously the second one – what a great way to end a week, right? Also, there’s no better way to end it than with a positive review. Drinking Buddies was the last movie I saw in 2013 and making the choice based on its name and the trailer, I was sure I wasn’t going to be disappointed. And giving the fact that I’m on a good movie binge right now, I’m proud to say that I really enjoyed Drinking Buddies.
For me, Drinking Buddies has a very realistic take on friendship and the whole concept of crushing on somebody is pretty accurately portrayed through Kate (Olivia Wilde) and Luke (Jake Johnson). I’ll admit this, that was pretty much the reason I liked it a lot, the sort of down to Earth approach on people and their relationships. The way the plot progressed and the place where the characters ended up bothered me a bit but the subtle messiness of it all was actually refreshing. There were definitely some scenes that stood out, one of them is actually used as my header image, and there were scenes that fell a bit short. The biggest miss in Drinking Buddies was probably Luke’s and Jill’s (Anna Kendrick) relationship because it was either portrayed to be annoying from start to finish, or it just didn’t connect as well as it should have.
But despite the annoyance of some characters, they were all surprisingly well portrayed. And by the surprise part I don’t mean Kendrick or Johnson, who I know are good anyway, but the one and only Olivia Wilde. Now, I’ve never really disliked her as an actress, she’s pretty and I find her voice smoothing, but I’ve only seen her in roles that haven’t really challenged her. Drinking Buddies put her in the front, all vulnerable and complicated, and I think she did good. I believed her, I felt bad for her and I was glad I got to see that part of her which I hadn’t seen before. Her chemistry was there with Johnson and if it weren’t for that, I probably wouldn’t like Johnson’s character at all due to his relationship with Jill. Like I said, I found that relationship to be rather annoying and that’s not Kendrick’s fault but maybe just a little – sometimes I find her to be just a tiny bit irritating.
(I love this image so much I’m going to use it here as well – look at those arms, just.. look at them.)
How the movie ended was another thing that annoyed me just a little but it was due to the thing previously mentioned – Jill. Now, I rooted for Wilde’s character because I was able to relate to Kate a lot more than Jill, therefore I saw no appeal of Jill and didn’t want her to come out as the winner. Was it a girly thing to wish from a half-romantic movie, yes, but I’m a girl and sometimes my weakness shows and I want the great chemistry friendship to turn into a relationship. That being said, I’m also glad Drinking Buddies didn’t take the route of romance and stuck with it’s bitter sweet analogy of friendship and love. It made sense, it felt right.
So I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have liked Drinking Buddies this much if Kate and Luke would have ended up together because it made the movie more real. Which is funny because there’s loads of romance in life and yet, I call the unromantic ending realistic – I’m the bitter person who’s going to end up with 15 cats! That being said, Drinking Buddies is a great alone-with-a-glass-of-wine type of movie and sometimes we need those movies more than we think.
METTEL RAY 
Leave a reply to Brittani Cancel reply