Everybody Drink

Drinking Buddies successfully brews unconventional romantic comedy

Early on in Drinking Buddies (now available on iTunes and On Demand), Ron Livingston’s character references Albert Camus’ “The Myth of Sisyphus.” The essay finds that Camus eventually sees Sisyphus smiling as he pushes the boulder up the mountain time and time again, knowing a seemingly impossible action can make the journey that much more enjoyable if you truly love the action.

It’s a heady allusion for a movie ostensibly about a foursome of twenty- and thirtysomethings dealing with the murky fluidity of relationships. But, surprisingly, it serves as a loose thesis throughout the film.

Drinking Buddies follows two couples: Chris (Livingston) and Kate (Olivia Wilde), and Luke (Jake Johnson) and Jill (Anna Kendrick). Kate and Luke work together at a craft brewery in Chicago, which means Luke sports the kind of aggressively bushy beard that all craft brewers must possess.

Drinking Buddies is a romantic comedy for people who operate in the real world. There are no contrived plot points revolving around tired rom-com tropes.

Kate is a tomboy in tank tops and little makeup, capable of drinking just about anyone under the table. And they drink a lot in this movie.

Lesser movies would make their significant others a harpy and an asshole. But here, Livingston and Kendrick eschew stereotypes for characters who are just as sympathetic and relatable as Johnson’s and Wilde’s.

The plot is straightforward, as the four characters figure out just where they stand with one another during the course of 90 minutes. The film relies almost exclusively on talking, and the movie was entirely improvised, so the actors are front and center the entire time.

Because of this loose structure, the film is only as good as the actors. Fortunately, everyone is game. The chemistry between Luke and Kate fills the frame each time they interact.

They’re two peas in a pod; they are sarcastic, scruffy, and really enjoy a good beer or five. You root for these characters even when you know it would mean hurting their partners, who mostly haven’t done anything wrong.

Drinking Buddies is a romantic comedy for people who operate in the real world. There are no contrived plot points revolving around tired rom-com tropes.

These characters aren’t pure good or pure evil. They’re flawed beings who have moments of weakness and frustration and all the things that come with attempting to figure out if the person you’re with is the right person for you. It’s a refreshing shift from the sheen of the likes of Josh Duhamel and Kate Hudson.

The laughs, fights and quiet doubts that can seep into the tiniest cracks of a relationship give the film a lived-in quality. It’s helped, no doubt, by director Joe Swanberg’s mumblecore background, though Drinking Buddies carries a more well-known roster of actors and a more defined reason for existing than most films of the genre.

What Drinking Buddies explores — besides the question of how much beer is too much (answer: no such thing) — is the line between a flirtatious friendship and actual cheating.

Can you be attracted to a friend and still be a good partner to your significant other? Whom do you really want to spend the rest of your life with, and is the possibility of something new and exciting worth destroying something that works near perfectly? And what happens when you realize that seemingly greener pastures have similar weeds?

And that’s really what Camus’ Sisyphus is about. It’s the acceptance that worthwhile things are often the most difficult. A relationship, whether romantic or platonic, requires effort and, to a degree, sacrifice and compromise.

These characters, particularly Luke, are tasked with deciding which boulders they will push up the mountain. Each misstep is the rock rolling back to the base. But, unlike Sisyphus, there seems to be hope that these drinking buddies can stay at the top.

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Drinking Buddies opens at Magnolia theaters August 30.

Drinking Buddies stars Olivia Wilde and Jake Johnson.

Oak Cliff Film Festival presents Drinking Buddies

Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

Drinking Buddies stars Olivia Wilde and Jake Johnson.

Movie Review

Jessica Chastain drama Dreams stumbles through steamy romance

Isaac Hernández and Jessica Chastain in Dreams

Photo courtesy of Teorema

Isaac Hernández and Jessica Chastain in Dreams.

The opening scenes of the new drama Dreams are bracing, fictional sequences that call to mind real-life scenarios. In them, a young Mexican man named Fernando (Isaac Hernández) goes through a somewhat harrowing journey from the back of a semi truck in South Texas all the way to San Francisco. It’s a familiar immigrant story that seems to set the stage for a film with something interesting to say.

It turns out, however, that Fernando has not made the long and arduous trek for a job. Instead, it’s to be with Jennifer McCarthy (Jessica Chastain), a rich woman who helps lead a foundation dedicated to multiple things, including funding dance academies. Fernando, a talented dancer, and Jennifer have been in an off-and-on affair for years, with Jennifer wanting to keep their relationship a secret.

Although both are drawn to each other in an inexplicable, lustful way, their bond is tenuous, with each of them dissatisfied for different reasons. Fernando clearly sacrifices much more of himself than Jennifer, who wants for nothing except maybe more affection from her father, Michael (Marshall Bell), and brother, Jake (Rupert Friend).

Writer/director Michel Franco seems to try to inject tension into Fernando and Jennifer’s relationship from the start, an attempt that is only halfway successful. It’s clear from the way they greet each other - not to mention a steamy sex scene shortly thereafter - that they have known each other for a good length of time. Franco is able to get across this familiarity with an economy of scenes, and the intensity of their bond holds for a while.

But as the film progresses and both of them grow disenchanted with their arrangement, Franco starts taking the story in some odd directions. The biggest issue is that it’s never clear at what point in time the story is taking place. Fernando ends up making multiple trips back and forth across the border, with Jennifer doing the same at one point, and Franco’s use of flashbacks muddies the waters, wrong-footing the audience when he should be trying to draw them further into Fernando and Jennifer’s complications.

Revelations in the final act make the story even more confusing, as both main characters start saying and doing harsh things that seem to come out of nowhere. That would be all well and good if Franco actually committed to their changes of heart, but he keeps things wishy-washy for most of the final 15 minutes, resulting in an ending that makes little sense for either character.

Despite the story issues, both Chastain and Hernández give compelling performances. Chastain has been a little under the radar since winning an Oscar for The Eyes of Tammy Faye, but she keeps this character interesting longer than it should have been. Hernández has limited credits and appears to have been cast for his dancing ability, but he goes toe-to-toe with Chastain on more than one occasion and acquits himself well.

Dreams had all of the ideas to explore a more in-depth story about the complicated immigration policies between Mexico and the U.S., or how wealthy people take advantage of those less fortunate. But Franco never finds the right footing, settling instead for a titillating and somewhat mystifying relationship story that feels half-baked.

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Dreams is now playing in select theaters.

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