MYST# 2: Drinking Buddies

I came upon this movie completely by accident, browsing on Netflix and realizing that it had an actor I liked in it (Jake M. Johnson, from New Girl,) as well as the recently famous Ana Kendrick in a supporting role. Although I don’t particularly like her as an actress I was interested after noticing the surprising 83% on Rotten Tomatoes from critics, because I had personally had never even heard of it. What I was expecting from this was a somewhat original but still overused formulated Hollywood love story, but it took a refreshing, very untraditional route that is definitely worth noting and watching.

The movie follows the friendships of the main two characters, Luke and Kate, played by Jake Johnson and Olivia Wilde, and how, despite both of them being in happy relationships, have an unspoken but surely, awkwardly there chemistry towards each other. Typical, you’d think. But what was so amazing was not the story itself but the way it was presented.

            Young director Joe Swanberg put an untraditional spin on this time-old story, by making it so utterly and painfully real. The writing, acting, cinematography, editing—it's all put together in a way that makes you feel less like you’re watching a movie and more like you’re experiencing this awkward sequence of events for yourself. The actors are very relaxed with one another, acting only in response to each other and probably adding a lot of improvisation. The dialogue is not faked or Hollywood-esque in the way that you’d expect a romance to be. The actors will pause, seem unsure of themselves, hesitate, and look painfully uncomfortable in appropriate situations. Sometimes there’s no important dialogue at all, just the minor chit chat that bring people closer together. The camerawork is not significantly flashy or glamorous, just natural shots conveying the subjects at hand. With all of these components put together, the film achieves a certain realistic quality that makes it so relatable and lovable.

There was one specific scene that stood out to me, in which they juxtapose the relationship of the main two best friends, Luke and Kate, to the new friendship of Luke's girlfriend and Kate's boyfriend, who decide to go on a hike together when Luke and Kate both decline. The camera cuts between scenes of the hike and Luke and Kate sitting around playing cards. I doubt any script was written for this scene--the two are just sitting around, joking and laughing and just being natural with each other, which is all the scene is trying to convey, as well as their chemistry. Meanwhile, the two on the hike find many more sophisticated similar interests. They don't talk much but when they do it's something meaningful, and a chemistry builds between them as well. By going back between the two couples, the camera is pointing out the differences in the relationships, letting us put together the pieces of the conflict of the story: that Luke and Kate, and their respective partner, are more meant for each other than the person they're currently with.

This movie overall was much better than I expected, although it did still have some flaws, one of which being that it sometimes felt as though there were something missing, a big scene that explained it all or a scene that felt normal-hollywood, scripted with lots of acting to wake us up from the strangeness of the movie and bring us back to plot line. But overall, I did like it, and I'll give it a rating of 7 out of 10.