DRINKING BUDDIES - LFF 2013 - Day Eleven

There's a lot to like in Joe Swanberg's relationship comedy, DRINKING BUDDIES.  He moves on from the narcissistic, solipsistic mumble core stylings of UNCLE KENT to something more mainstream and accessible, but manages to keep the emotional authenticity of his previous work.

Olivia Wilde is fantastic as Kate, a fun-loving, rather fragile girl who works at a micro brewery with her best friend Luke (Jake Johnson of THE NEW GIRL fame).  They have one of those close friendships that verges into sexual chemistry and we feel sure that they're with the wrong people.  This is compounded when we realise that their respective others, played by Anna Kendrick and Ron Livingston, are also actually pretty well paired, and should probably get together.  

In any other movie, this would descend into a cheesy play by numbers rom-com in which Chris breaking up with Kate and Kate rebound sleeping with a sleazy coworker would spark Luke into jealously realising that he should be with Kate all along.  But this isn't that movie. Instead, in a number of closely observed scenes, we get Jill go on vacation, leaving Kate and Luke to become closer but also to be exposed to what each of them really up is and wants.  As an audience, we realise that Kate really isn't as attractive as all that.  She quite immature, maybe developing an unhealthy dependence on alcohol.  And while Luke seems like a similarly fun loving guy, he's actually a lot more grown up.  In fact, the seemingly perfect couple if-only-they-knew-it, well, isn't. 

The joy of this film is seeing the largely improvised and naturalistic way in which these relationships evolve and unravel.  I love that it subverts and depends the classic rom-co characters and tropes.  And I love that I genuinely liked the characters and wanted to see what happened to them.  Kudos to all involved. 

DRINKING BUDDIES has a running time of 90 minutes and is rated R in the USA.

DRINKING BUDDIES played SXSW and London 2013. It opened earlier this year in the USA.  It opens in the UK and Ireland on November 1st. 

YOU'RE NEXT

You can listen to a podcast review of this movie below, or subscribe to Bina007 Movie Reviews in iTunes.

YOU'RE NEXT is a properly laugh-out loud funny, sometimes spoofy, sometimes properly scary horror movie from  director Adam Wingard.  Once you get attuned to the fact that he's playing it for laughs, abetted by straight-faced actors, you can sit back and enjoy this wonderfully camp twist on the final-girl home invasion horror.

In writer Simon Barrett's set-up, a preppie extended family gathers in an isolated swanky mansion for a reunion.  They soon descend into jealous sniping and convey their contempt for the hipster indie film-maker boyfriend of one of the daughters (a nice touch, that!) But we know from the obligatory adulterer-and-slut-slasher prologue that mayhem is about to be unleashed.  The plot unfolds for an enjoyable fifty minutes or so, with a satisfyingly gory pile  up of bodies, and the brilliant fun of watching the sweet Aussie girlfriend (Sharni Vinson) transform into a practical no-nonsense heroine. I also love how the snarky competitive elder brother remains snarky and competitive even with an arrow through his back: "I'm the fastest runner but I have an arrow through my back!" Joe Swanberg at his finest.

Sadly, the first of the three twists - or really the major twist that sets up the two sub-twists - is a bit predictable, and also a bit rootless. In other words, it coulda been anyone, and it's clearly just a convenient plot point rather than anything more meaty.  The second twist is even more predictable - absences in horror always are.  The final twist was the funniest and most tragic and I kinda wish Wingard had stuck with it, but there we are. I can see the emotional justification for the alternative route.  

All of which is coded language that signifies the following:  the acting and dialogue are sometimes deliberately obvious, but Sharni Vinson in particular is absolutely superb and a charismatic screen presence.  The movie may jump the shark in terms of going Full Comedy in the final twenty minutes - all that 80s synth music when the Final Girl goes MacGuyver - but I had a fantastic time watching it, and could easily watch it again just for that blender scene. There's many a studio comedy that never approaches this level of entertainment, and there's brilliantly inventive gore too.

YOU'RE NEXT has a running time of 96 minutes and is rated R in the USA and 18 in the UK for strong bloody violence.

YOU'RE NEXT played Toronto 2011 and opens in the USA on August 23rd, when it also plays Frightfest. It opens on August 28th in Belgium, Ireland and the UK.  It opens in Spain on August 30th, in France on September 4th, in Greece on September 5th, in Poland on September 6th, in Argentina on September 12th, in Denmark and Italy on September 19th, in Chile on September 26th, and in New Zealand on October 17th. 

UNCLE KENT - Mumblecore, softcore, borecore

While kicking up a riot at Scoundrels Chicago, I managed to break out and detox for a little over an hour in the mecca for all film reviewers - The Gene Siskel Film Center. I wandered in to the first film showing - which happened to be Joe Swanberg's mumblecore flick, UNCLE KENT. Just as its genre conventions require, UNCLE KENT is a low-budget lo-fi drama basically consisting of a bunch of financially comfortable but emotionally illiterate twenty and thirty somethings whining about their personal problems and jacking off. That might sound dismissive and I think the genre does have a tendency toward self-indulgence and baggy-narratives. However, when in the right hands it has managed to throw up movies of real warmth, depth and honesty. Think Alex Holdridge's IN SEARCH OF A MIDNIGHT KISS and the Duplass brothers' CYRUS - both of which made it to my Best Of lists.

Unfortunately, UNCLE KENT is no CYRUS. In fact, at a 72 minute run time including credits, it's barely a feature length film. It stars Kent Osborne (real-life animator on Spongebob Squarepants as "Kent" - a commitment-phobe jack-ass in the body of a forty-year old who dresses ten years too young. As with most mumblecore flicks, Kent espouses a kind of slacker freedom and mediates all his personal relationships through the internet. As the film opens, Kent picks up a girl called Kate (Jennifer Prediger) on Chatroulette - a website usually known for men jacking off on webcam - a point later demonstrated in the film. Still from such unpromising beginnings, the pair to seem to have a genuine connection. The tragedy is that they can only express it by having a threesome with a girl they meet on Craigslist. And as the weekend winds up, the downside of "slacker freedom" is painfully obvious to us and to Kent - not knowing where you stand - not being able to speak honestly about feelings, but constantly speaking openly about sex.

The movie looks better - more tripod shots - than in Swanberg's previous work, although he still uses POV shots and handheld cameras to annoyingly trite effect. The narrative is baggy and meandering and bores, even though the run-time is short. Most of all, while the movie did contain flashes of honesty about how my generation dates via the the web, it didn't really get under the skin of their emotional lives. One day, Swanberg is going to have to sit down and write a proper script and move beyond superficial "wisdom" about the distancing effect of the internet.

UNCLE KENT played Sundance 2011 and was released on a variety of media in the US earlier this year. It is currently playing at the Gene Siskel Center in Chicago.