Drinking Buddies (2013)

 As I've said before, I quite like it when a small indie movie pops up and I decide to watch it even though no one else I know has ever heard of or seen it before. This is one of those examples where, after hearing about it from a couple of movie festivals (and most recently the British Film Festival) I decided to give it a go. It seemed to have a good cast and a good storyline so why not?

 The film centres on Kate (Olivia Wilde) who works at a brewery with her best friend Luke (Jake Johnson) and follows their relationship and feelings for each. While it is obvious to all who witness them together that they like each other, the problem comes from the fact that they are both in relationships. Kate's boyfriend Chris (Ron Livingston) and Luke's girlfriend Jill (Anna Kendrick) cause problems for the two friends who must also deal with the complex feelings they have for each other and how this will affect their friendship and those around them.

 I genuinely went into this film with pretty high expectations. It has a great cast full of talented people that I have liked in their other projects and, in my opinion, I thought that this story could be a good basis for a nice little movie with a sweet story and message.

 Boy was I wrong.

 I found this film incredibly boring and lacking in any real drive or focus. This a problem that I imagine probably derives from the lack of script. Apparently this film is almost completely improvised during the filming process and this was pretty obvious throughout. I'm not saying that the dialogue is stinted or unnatural, more that its natural to the point of actually demonstrating how horrifically plain most normal conversations are.

 I was also expecting more drama and events taking place. However the majority of the film is people getting drunk and not really doing anything, or contains scenes that are full of the classic awkward 'I kind of like you but I can't do anything about it' scenes that you get in the majority of romantic story lines. The whole thing is just slow and uneventful.

The only redeeming factor is that the actors are actually pretty good. They all give good performances, it's just a shame that they can't use any of their talents towards a decent focus and just perform each scene as it is, without being able to properly link the story or have a good conclusion to aim for.

Overall, there may well be a reason why this movie hasn't really made any impact and I wouldn't make any special attempt to go and see it.