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Drinking Buddies
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Magnolia Pictures Review written by and copyright: Noor Razzak (9th January 2014). |
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The Film
 "Drinking Buddies" is a film that's billed as a comedy, but 20 minutes into it there's not a single laugh to be had, and it pretty much continues that way for the rest of 70 minutes that make up this films' runtime. It's easy to think - how can a film billed as a comedy be so void of any laughter? The answer is simple, this film is not a comedy, even in the audio commentary the film's director comments that his aim was to make a low-budget drama. I suppose part of the blame can be laid on the film's marketers, perhaps not sure how to sell this film to audiences and another reason why the film never really found an audience (despite the relatively high critical response, with an 82% score on Rottentomatoes) during its short theatrical run and only having reach 33 screens in the US alone. Luke (Jake Johnson) and Kate (Olivia Wilde) are co-workers at a craft beer brewery, where they spend their days drinking and flirting with each other. Both Luke and Kate are in committed relationships. Luke is in marriage talks with his girlfriend Jill (Anna Kendrick) and Kate is playing it cool with her music producer boyfriend Chris (Ron Livingston). The couples take a trip to a cabin to relax and drink, but lines start getting blurred between the couples... all thanks to beer. Upon first impressions there's nothing really noteworthy about "Drinking Buddies" until you discover that the entire film was improvised. Director Joe Swanberg basically wrote a story outline, and the dialogue was entirely made up. The actors didn't even know the order of things, they were basically thrown into the deep end with a vague outline of the scene and told to make magic happen. This style of filmmaking is entirely dependant on your cast, in order to truly pull this experiment off, your cast needs to be well versed in improvisation and the ability to make something out of nothing and most importantly have it feel natural and with instant chemistry. I feel like that's where this film really falls apart. Of the entire cast Jason Sudeikis (who plays a small role) was the only one that had a grasp of this concept, the other actors looked lost for material and entered into scenes that really didn't go anywhere. The film's two leads Jake Johnson and Olivia Wilde's onscreen chemistry is solid and they are both generally likeable, but that's about all they manage to achieve with their scenes together, and Anna Kendrick, who's usually great in everything she does, is reduced to stumbling through her dialogue in order to try and make something happen. A lot of the film seems like a series of missed opportunities. The entire film is framed within the brewery in which these characters work, and the scenes tend to progress around beer and drinking with each other (even in the brewery's break room they drink beer), the amber drink acts as catalyst for almost all of their social interactions and tends to be the propellant for most of the scenes in the film. This framework gets tedious after a while because there's nothing else other than beer which offers a foundation for everything that happens in this film. Maybe they all should have actually been drunk while making this film, at least then it would be a lot more interesting (like this short film). You know when you're drunk you think you've have great conversations and ideas and your brain often remembers it differently, well this is the film equivalent of that. It's sounds like a great idea at the time, but isn't really. The high critical reception to this film really puzzles me as "Drinking Buddies" often feels forced and drawn out.
Video
Presented in the film's theatrical ratio of 2.40:1 mastered in high definition 1080p 24/fps using AVC MPEG-4 compression. The film was shot on a tiny budget, and as a result the film's image looks that way. The overall picture is flat and uninteresting, there's no real dynamic to the way director of photography Ben Richardson shot this film. This may have something to do with the fact that he may not have known what they were going to shoot on any particular day, or that director Joe Swanberg wanted to maintain a low budget feel, or perhaps a combination of those two things. One thing's for sure, Richardson has delivered exceptional work in the past, most notably in "Beasts of the Southern Wild" (2012). The colors look natural, skin tones in particular. The image is at least clean and crisp.
Audio
Magnolia includes an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround mixed at 48kHz/24-bit. The film is entirely dialogue driven, and this unremarkable audio track pretty much covers just about that. Dialogue is clean and clear, surrounds are limited and the only thing that really makes use of the surround channels is the film's music. To be honest a stereo track would have been enough with this film. Optional subtitles are included in English for the hearing impaired and Spanish.
Extras
For a film that wasn't exactly a box office hit, Magnolia sure has packed a decent amount of supplements on this release. The disc includes an audio commentary, a series of deleted scenes, a collections of interviews, three featurettes, the film's theatrical trailer, bonus trailers plus bookmarks and BD-Live access. First up is the feature-length audio commentary with writer/director Joe Swanberg, producers Andrea Roa and Alicia Van Couvering. Much like the characters in the film, these participants also drink some beer as they discuss the film. It's a lively track, which in many ways is better than the film itself. They comment on the concept for the film, on working with the cast and how the scenes transpired among other things. Up next are a series of deleted scenes and outtakes reel which can be viewed with optional audio commentary by writer/director Joe Swanberg (1080p) the reel runs for 7 minutes 15 seconds, and includes a series of unused improvisations. A collection of four interviews (1080i) are included with the cast, they comment on their characters, the nature of the film and the improvisational nature, why this project appealed to them among other things, the interviews can be viewed individually or with a 'play all' option and are with: - Olivia Wilde which runs for 4 minutes 4 seconds. - Jake Johnson which runs for 2 minutes 5 seconds. - Anna Kendrick which runs for 3 minutes 29 seconds. - Ron Livingston which runs for 3 minutes 15 seconds. "AXS TV: A Look at Drinking Buddies" (1080i) is a featurette which runs for 3 minutes 15 seconds, this is a brief EPK style promotional behind-the-scenes clip. "All Things Drinking" (1080i) is the next featurette which runs for 29 minutes 38 seconds, this clip features the film's director Joe Swanberg and "Drinking Made Easy" host Zane Lamprey. This is basically an interview where the director comments on the film, it's themes and style, his directing process. It's like a condensed version of the audio commentary. The final featurette is entitled "Behind the Scenes at Revolution Brewery" (1080p) which runs for 4 minutes 15 seconds, this is a look at the brewery used for the filming. The film's original theatrical trailer (1080p) is also included which runs for 2 minutes 31 seconds. The disc also features some bonus trailers (1080p) for: - "Prince Avalanche" which runs for 2 minutes 20 seconds. - "Mr. Nobody" which runs for 2 minutes 6 seconds. - "Syrup" which runs for 1 minute 47 seconds. - "Bad Milo" which runs for 2 minutes 10 seconds. - "AXStv" promo which runs for 31 seconds. The disc is authored with a bookmarks feature and BD-Live access.
Packaging
Packaged in a standard Blu-ray keep case.
Overall
This film is an acquired taste, unfortunately it wasn't for mine.
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