“Drinking Buddies” log line is perhaps the easiest sell to fans of fancy drafts, like me: two charismatic, pretty good looking people build a relationship around craft beer.

Simple enough, right?

Right.

Just like the lede states, “Drinking Buddies” isn’t trying to fool you with its title, at its core, it’s just a story about two friends and the beverage that brings them together.
Joe Swanberg wrote and directed the feature that stars an A-list cast including Anna Kendrick, Jason Sudeikis and Olivia Wilde. Swanberg (who actually has more acting credits to his name as opposed to writing and directing) crafted a clever script that achieves a level of certain casualness that one would expect from a movie about drinking, but also carries a fair amount of tension that begs the romantic question, “Will they or won’t they?”

At the center of the on-screen romance is Olivia Wilde’s Kate.
Kate kind-of-sort-of has a thing for co-worker and friend Luke (Jake Johnson). Problem is, Luke is engaged to Jill, an easy going girl who’s hard not to love.
Of course, considering it’s Anna Kendrick who plays Jill, it’s hard not to fall in love
with her.

I say “kind-of-sort-of” simply because that’s how Swanberg tells his story; there isn’t a pressing romance needing to happen to make the movie’s plot work, Kate and Luke’s chemistry is so easy going and Jill is so likeable, it’s easy for the audience to want Luke to be with both Kate and Jill.

However, this is Hollywood after all, and Luke ultimately has to choose between the two.

Sure, Swanberg’s script is slick and crafted in a way that is charmingly casual but the triple threat’s real talent shines in his direction.

Swanberg’s eye for composition and story pacing are scary good.

Olivia Wilde may not be the best female lead for the role, but the under-utilized actress shows signs of strong comedic timing and her lone scene with Jason Sudeikis’ Gene Dentler is pretty memorable. However, Kendrick’s natural comedic talent easily steals a fair share of scenes.

Considering that the craft beer world only accounts for close to 3 percent of all domestic beer production, the movie’s target audience is microbially small.

But “Drinking Buddies” is so likeable, even the most dry of towns can get
behind it.

I’ll cheers to that.

“Drinking Buddies” opens at three area theaters today: the Magnolia, Studio Movie Grill Spring Valley and Texas Theatre.