Drinking games – Joe Swanberg’s Drinking Buddies is available now on iTunes and Netlflix.

In theaters Friday: Kick-Ass 2, Jobs, Lee Daniel’s The Butler, Paranoia
New on Blu-ray: The Big Wedding, The Company You Keep, Olympus Has Fallen

Both big-hearted and raw to the bone, Joe Swanberg’s new workplace dramedy Drinking Buddies detonates any need for well-worn Hollywood rom-com tropes on its way to tip-toeing through a minefield of mixed emotions, hesitant beauties and a literal bonfire of sexual frustrations. It’s the kind of film haters will slander with “nothing happens!” or “it just ends!” but if you’re really watching, this smartly written, sublimely acted slice of modernity will strike a nerve.

Drinking Buddies stars Olivia Wilde (TRON: Legacy, House) and Jake Johnson (New Girl) as coworkers at a Chicago microbrewery whose relationship is friendly, fun, honest and dependable. The chemistry between them is magnetic, and so the pair is virtually inseparable—except when they each go home at the end of the day to their significant others (Office Space‘s Ron Livingston and Pitch Perfect‘s Anna Kendrick, respectively) and those romantic relationships that are strained in various ways.

When Wilde’s boyfriend dumps her, you need a machete to cut the tension as she and Johnson are constantly tempted to cross emotional and physical lines their friendship has only ever flirted with from a safe distance.

Studies show, the average person spends about two-thirds of his entire life at work. That’s more time than that spent with our friends, spouses and children. What if the bonds formed at work between a man and woman grow deeper roots than any romantic relationship? Can a man and woman be friends? Can they be best friends without physical attraction?

Swanberg’s talky drama, largely improvised based on outlines scenes, examines this equation and produces a startlingly real portrait of loyalty, desire and devotion. The entire cast is brilliant, Wilde in particular, who gives an incredibly nuanced performance as a young woman who is both frustratingly flawed and infinitely loveable. She and Johnson would be doing the world a disservice if they never worked together on screen again. The thick-throated ending itself ensures audiences want more of these two together.

Drinking Buddies is available now on iTunes and Netlflix. Watch the trailer below: