Reviews now on YouTube! | Watch here

Larsen On Film

  • Review Library
  • Subscribe
  • Why I’m Wrong
  • About
  • Books

Drinking Buddies

A wryly observant relationship dramedy from writer-director Joe Swanberg, Drinking Buddies has the sort of modesty and intimacy that would benefit bigger-budgeted Hollywood attempts at such stories. It’s cozy, and that’s largely why it works.

Olivia Wilde stars as Kate, an event manager at a Chicago microbrewery who has a chummy, teasing, flirty relationship with a coworker named Luke (Jake Johnson). Her boyfriend, however, is the less amiable Chris (Ron Livingston), while Luke is in a long-term relationship with Jill (Anna Kendrick), a special-education teacher eager for marriage.

As the four become closer friends, you can probably guess what happens. The narrative decks are pretty stacked here, so that Drinking Buddies doesn’t really work as compelling drama (and I’m not enough of a Jake Johnson fan to enjoy it as comedy). It’s not only that Chris and Jill are mismatches for their respective romantic partners; they’re mismatches for the movie’s overall hipster-granola aesthetic.

Still, the film has an achingly vulnerable performance from Wilde, whose career so far has mostly taken place on the sidelines of action movies. And Swanberg does manage an elegantly simple final scene that speaks to the movie’s endearing nonchalance. Drinking Buddies won’t change your world, but it’s a nice movie to have a beer with.

Recent Reviews

Materialists (2025)

Drama Rated R

“It’s not you, Dakota Johnson, it’s me.”

The Phoenician Scheme (2025)

Comedy Rated PG-13

“… unwisely asks Del Toro to conform to a particular Anderson type.”

Bring Her Back (2025)

Horror Rated R

“… ghoulishly registers as a mediation on the madness of grief.”


Search Review Library

Sponsored by the following | become a sponsor



SUBSCRIBE


Sign up to receive emails

Sign up to get new reviews and updates delivered to your inbox!

Please wait...

Thank you for signing up!




FOLLOW ONLINE



All rights reserved. All Content ©2024 J. Larsen
maintained by Big Ocean Studios

TOP