Paige, an environmental lawyer, and Sasha, a struggling musician working as a receptionist, are two best friends in their late 20s. After forcing themselves to try online dating one night, they go on separate dates. Sasha's ends in disaster, while Paige has a good date with Tim, a young and charming doctor. Sasha continues to have a string of bad dates and failed relationships while Paige and Tim continue dating. Tim eventually proposes to Paige and she accepts. Sasha begins to feel excluded as Paige begins to focus more on Tim and their relationship, while Paige begins to feel that Sasha is childish as Paige hates the girls Sasha dates and does not think much of her lack of direction. At a barbecue that Paige and Tim host, they try to set up Sasha with a woman they think of as kind and reliable. When Sasha blows her off, Paige and Sasha have a falling-out and stop speaking to one another. Sasha gets fired from her job over her poor performance. She later runs into Tim who is also having a difficult time in his relationship with Paige who is constantly trying to control him and refuses to apologize. While there, Tim also tells Sasha that it is fine for her to give up on her dream of being a musician if that is no longer what she is passionate about. The conversation leaves Sasha with a better impression of Tim. Realizing that she is too stubborn, Paige apologizes to Tim. Sometime later as she is driving her car, she sees Sasha out driving. The two begin to honk at each other and shout at each other in pretend anger, a joke that they played on one another when they were friends.
Susanna Fogel and Joni Lefkowitz met in 2002 at a sketch comedy writing class and became friends. Lefkowitz and Fogel both starred in the 2008 web series Joni & Susanna. The film is an adaptation of the playLife Partners, written by Lefkowitz and Fogel based on their friendship and similar to the one depicted in Walking and Talking by Nicole Holofcener. In 2011, the play, starring Amanda Walsh and Shannon Woodward, was created and premiered as part of one act play series Unscreened, which develops and produces world-premiere short plays by some of Hollywood's fastest-rising writers and featuring multi-star casts. In the aftermath of its success, producer Jordana Mollick approached the pair to consider adapting the play into a feature. Lefkowitz and Fogel first thought about Kristen Bell and Evan Rachel Wood to portray the role of Sasha, but when they both got pregnant, the role was given to Leighton Meester. Magnolia Pictures acquired the US rights to the film on May 16, 2014.
Life Partners earned $8,265 in North America. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 66%, based on 35 reviews, with an average rating of 6.04/10. The site's consensus reads "With two appealing leads adrift in a sitcom-worthy plot, Life Partners doesn't do quite enough to earn viewers' commitment." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 57 out of 100, based on 15 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
