“Drinking Buddies” is a comedy about blurring the line between work friendship and budding romance. And when you work in a brewery — and partake of your product as often as you can — that line gets even blurrier.
Writer/director Joe Swanberg premiered his movie Saturday night at the South By Southwest film festival. Known for indie flicks with minuscule budgets, he brought his eighth film to the Austin gathering. It’s also easily the biggest production, with a cast featuring Olivia Wilde, Anna Kendrick, Jake Johnson and Ron Livingston.
Walking the red carpet, Swanberg said he didn’t feel extra pressure despite the more-lavish production.
“The film grew to its size really organically,” he said. “There wasn’t a concerted effort to make something bigger; it’s just that this was a story that I wanted to tell and then, as the actors came on board, the budget grew.”
Though the plot was scripted, Swanberg had the actors improvise their dialogue so that the audience could “see real people coming through.”
“You’re not watching famous Hollywood actors playing roles, what you’re seeing is their personalities shining through,” he said. “They’re still playing characters, but they’re bringing a lot of themselves into it.”
Wilde said she so relished making her lines up as she went along that “Drinking Buddies is the highlight of her career so far.
“It’s the thing I’m most proud of,” she said. “I feel that I devoted myself to this in a way I’ve never done. Improvising the entire film meant that I was constantly creating.”
Wilde and Jake Johnson of TV’s “New Girl” play colleagues at a Chicago brewery whose close friendship teeters on turning into something more — even though both are in relationships with other people.
Kendrick, who garnered an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress for “Up in the Air” and also starred in “Pitch Perfect” and “50/50,” plays Johnson’s girlfriend. Livingston, of “Office Space” fame is involved with Wilde. But another star of the movie is beer, with bottles and glasses and plastic cups of it being swigged from copiously throughout.
The movie features few characters — though Swanberg himself makes a cameo — and the dialogue they share often feels spontaneous. That left a packed-house crowd at the Texas capital’s stately Paramount Theatre laughing early and often on the festival’s second night.
“It’s a different muscle,” Livingston said of improvising. He added of Swanberg: “He’ll go without a net. He’s not afraid to change the story as we go.”
Johnson said he came of age improvising on stage and continues to do so at times on his television show.
“Joe knew what he wanted so it wasn’t free form,” Johnson said. “It was very disciplined improv.”
Swanberg lives in Chicago and filmed on-location at breweries there. An avid home-brewer, he said he picked up more than a few choice tips during shooting.
“Making a movie in a brewery,” Swanberg said, “that’s about the greatest thing I could imagine.”
SUPERLATIVE Signs Director Claudia Abend For Spots and Branded Content
Latin American director/editor and documentary filmmaker Claudia Abend has joined SUPERLATIVE for her first U.S. representation spanning commercials and branded content.
Abend's empathetic docu-style POV has garnered several international awards for the documentary films Hit (2008) and The Flower of Life (2018). Her spotmaking credits include such brands as Procter & Gamble, Nestle and Blue Cross/Blue Shield. SUPERLATIVE has already worked with Abend, together producing a new ad campaign for digital agency Tinuiti and The Honest Company, a consumer goods corporation featuring eco-minded products.
“We found Claudia through her poignant documentaries on the festival circuit,” said SUPERLATIVE creative manager Stefan Dezil. “We are excited about her textured narratives, emotional storytelling, and her powerhouse long-form storytelling abilities, currently on her third feature film. As SUPERLATIVE continues to build our brand after premiering our latest films at Sundance and SXSW, Claudia is the kind of multidimensional artist we are excited to partner with on branded content and beyond. Fluent in English and Spanish, her reel shows real prowess with infants, food and skin products, families both young and old. Great visual storytelling and inspirational doc work.”
Abend began her career in her native Uruguay, studying film and editing in college. “My dad would show me films like Citizen Kane,” she said. “I love cinema and became an editor. It was here that I learned all about communicating human emotion.”
From the get-go, Abend hit it big as a documentary director, teaming with Adrianna Loeff on Hit, a movie chronicling pop artists of Uruguayan music. Abend took home a Best Editing... Read More