Anna Kendrick and Ron Livingston in â œDrinking Buddies,â a
deceivingly jolly, sharply alert romantic comedy. Illustrates
FILM-DRINKING-ADV06 (category e), by Ann Hornaday (c) 2013, The
Washington Post. Moved Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2013. (MUST CREDIT:
Magnolia Pictures) (Magnolia Pictures/Magnolia Pictures)
"Drinking Buddies," Joe Swanberg's deceivingly jolly, sharply
alert romantic comedy, doesn't just pay homage to those
confusing unspoken feelings, but engages in that very opaqueness
itself, plunging viewers into the same kind of what's-really-
going-on-here questions that its young, attractive protagonists
are facing.   But Luke's living with Jill (Anna Kendrick), a
sweet-natured special education teacher who gamely tries to keep
up with Kate and Luke's in-jokes but who, like Chris, inevitably
finds all the kidding around a little tiresome. You know where
this will end up. Right?  Swanberg is best known for being part
of the mumblecore generation, a group whose naturalistic
portraits of Millennial agonistes