Magnolia Pictures
Beer is not the only thing brewing in Drinking Buddies, a romcom with a serious edge written and directed by Joe Swanberg. With a Chicago craft brewery as its setting, the movie explores the notion that a taste for mates may not be so changeable as one’s palate for artisanal hops.
High-spirited and quippy Kate (Olivia Wilde) is the brewery’s events and tastings organizer who’s involved with Chris (Ron Livingston). Luke (Jake Johnson), the company’s brew master, enjoys an affable and collegial work relationship with Kate, which involves a certain amount of hanging out together. Similarly, Luke is in a long term relationship with Jill (Anna Kendrick), a schoolteacher.
Then, one weekend, the foursome takes a mini-vacation to a beach house together, and something happens that upsets the romantic and commitment status quo. Will the new match-ups and proclivities fuel revaluations of their respective relationships? Or will the opportunity to make changes scare them to death and send them back to the archetypal Saturnine security of a known but boring future?
It’s no accident that the beer enterprise, called Revolution Brewery, represents the Uranian archetype of rebelliousness, reinvention and unshackling. When Kate breaks up with Chris, she declares, “I’m free.”
Audiences will initially cheer Kate on for her fearlessness. But her continued recklessness and misplaced bravado makes the Saturnine qualities of dependability and commitment – no matter how mundane and yawn-worthy – more attractive to help decide whether to stick with a known quantity.
Astrology Film Review: ♄ (Saturn)
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