| ‘GOING THE DISTANCE’ - review |
| Written by Sian Rafferty |
| Thursday, 02 September 2010 10:29 |
 JUSTIN LONG and DREW BARRYMORE appear to be (from that well-known source of ultimate truth and wisdom: the gossip rags), that Hollywood couple that just works. He has slight dopey, dorky tendencies, and she is that flower-power, comeback kid with rings on her fingers and bells on her toes. Let’s just say, as a woman who was infamously married to Tom Green (sorry Drew, three months still counts as a marriage), the Macbook guy is sure one heck of a step up. ‘GOING THE DISTANCE’ is like someone just pulled out a handycam on this duo's day to day life and voila – the story pretty much wrote itself. It's roughly based on what could be called the first relationship commandment: thou shall not find true love until thou least expects it (preferably when one is flying 1000 miles away in the next two weeks and never coming back). ‘Going The Distance’ follows Garrett (Justin Long) and Erin’s (Drew Barrymore) sometimes successful and sometimes catastrophic attempts at maintaining a long distance relationship. They try texting (‘What you doing?’ ‘Nothing, what you doing?...’ ‘Nothing.’), fighting the time zone battle with early morning/mid-afternoon phone calls, even spending Christmas unwrapping presents over Skype. They really do try everything. It’s rather more ballsy and crass than your average Katherine Heigl chick-flick. I can’t work out if this is to appeal to the men? Or maybe movie producers have realised it’s more than just the male variety who have been catching on to the Russell Brand/Seth Rogan/Judd Apatow action of the past year or two. Although slightly cringe-worthy in some places, it is quite refreshing to catch a few ‘boy-jokes’ every now and again. One thing in particular I did find pleasantly pleasing was the sense of realism the writers seemed to aim for. Let’s face it people - in life - long distance is hard. You can’t always just jump on a plane and flights are expensive. Jealousy and uncertainty is going to hit you like a freight train. It’s kind of nice to see, that even in Hollywood-land, the current economic climate still stings and it’s not always possible to just drop everything.  However, one thing that did stick with me was the incredibly obvious double standard which seemed to shout out with big, flashing neon lights. It was expected that Erin could leave her dream job and waitress just to be near Garrett, yet the question of Garrett doing the same was never seriously brought up. Despite this, Erin and Garrett still made a sweet couple and the addition of Garrett’s two ridiculously-awkward and clueless yet all together hilarious best mates Dan (Charlie Day) and Box (Jason Sudeikis), as well as Christina Applegate as Erin’s stuck-up and settled down older sister, makes a well-rounded cast. I did kind of stop and think though: since when did Drew Barrymore stop aging? It was only a couple of years ago that her and Applegate would get cast side by side in a movie. I mean, Applegate was in movies with Cameron Diaz around the same time as Diaz was with Barrymore - so how come Applegate is the one stuck with the prissy, older sister role? ‘Going The Distance’ is a fun look at the difficulties with relationships in this digital era and although not the strongest movie of the year, I like the fact that we are finally getting out of this ‘girl movies/boy movies’ box. ‘Going The Distance’ is finally a movie which does, as the tagline says, meet halfway. THING YOU MOST NEED TO KNOW: Charlie Day has some seriously creepy living habits, so if he ever turns up while you are looking for flatmates... trust me, don’t let him in. HEARTOMETER: 1 2 3 4 5 6 [ out of 10 ] YOU WILL LIKE, IF YOU LIKE: ‘Valentines Day,’ ‘He’s Just Not That Into You,' ‘Knocked Up,’ ‘I Love You Man’ etc. WATCH: Those old Mac/P.C.'s ads that Justin Long used to make for some pre-cool, nerdy flashbacks. |
