Rating of
2.5/4
A familiar relation.
memento_mori - wrote on 12/02/13
It's very easy to like a film that's so cheerful and laid back as this film gets at times.
I never knew it could be so much fun watching other people have fun, yet, there it is. Joe Swanberg's rather impressive new tiny little comedy has its definite high points as well as its low ones, but not too much of either to bing the equation out of balance.
The performances of the cast are wonderful, especially Olivia Wilde. Her excessive giggling got on my nerves sometimes, but the 'not a worry in the world' attitude was very authentic and seemed like an actual person that needed attention to feel better about themselves.
I think Ron Livingston is miscast and didn't add anything except a very uncomfortable and tense screen presence. Other than that, watching the characters interact and find pleasure in the smallest of things was always very entertaining, because the director seemed to emphasize that aspect of friendship.
Where writer/director Swanberg steps into a zone in which he doesn't exactly know what he is doing, is when he escalates the relationships and makes them more than friends. I don't believe I have ever seen people act quite as awkward and out of order as the characters do when they become more intimate with each other. Not every fun evening between a man and a woman has to end in cuddling and twisting hair, does it? Nevertheless, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't entertained by it.
Watch it with the lights out before you go to bed and you'll be content with what you just witnessed. It's nothing special or what we haven't seen before, but it's a nice reminder of how we should feel about each other and interact with each other, and when it gets down it: How we should love people. And that some of us can be a little more than just drinking buddies.
