Going the Distance

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Bec B The movie is good. Five stars for Charlie Day who was the stand out for me. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 06/14/24 Full Review Rose D At the start the two leads seemed equally annoying, but in the latter half they won me over. The movie was less saccharine than many of this genre, and the supporting cast is excellent. Overall, a significantly better movie than I had expected. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 10/12/22 Full Review lanfranco c A very common experience. Rated 1/5 Stars •  Rated 1 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review Audience Member Idk what to say, I liked this movie. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/16/23 Full Review Audience Member Although this movie includes some great names and a few laughs, it lacks a plot to keep the momentum going. Rated 0.5/5 Stars •  Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 01/21/23 Full Review Audience Member The key to a good rom-com is setting up a solid romantic relationship, and then putting an appropriate point of conflict between the two characters that threatens to keep them apart. Then traditionally, after a moment where the movie feigns that they will never be together again, we get the happy conclusion. Going the Distance can’t even get this basic structure right. It starts out muddled because you think the conflict in the film is going to be that Justin Long’s character can’t commit. This is a classic rom-com trope, where the ladies man refuses to settle down until he meets the right woman for him. Likewise, Drew Barrymore seems to be playing someone who is also resistant to a relationship. However, mere minutes after they meet it seems that the entire setup was a fake-out because both of them are more than willing to start dating within seconds of screentime. Going the Distance isn’t a story about those who fear commitment at all. Instead this is a movie where the conflict is maintaining a long-distance relationship. This didn’t work for me as a premise because the characters spend too much time together. It’s as if the writer and director were so afraid that they’d lose the audience’s investment in the relationship if the two of them weren’t on screen together, so we constantly see them meet up. Instead of wallowing in misery and dealing with the constant frustration and temptation that comes from being separated, they visit one another regularly. Even though I thought Barrymore and Long had some decent chemistry, the movie didn’t tell their story well enough for me to care. And because I was struggling to care about the things that tore them apart, I was unmoved when they were reunited at the end. Then there’s the single worst thing in Going the Distance, possibly one of the worst things in any film ever made...Charlie Day. I do not know what people see in this guy, but he is remarkably unfunny and by far the most annoying character in this film. Every time he’s on the screen he’s doing something moronic that a normal human being would never do, and he does it all with that obnoxious whiny voice that makes nails on a chalkboard sound like a beautiful sonata in comparison. Poor Jason Sudeikis is forced to be in almost every scene with this guy, and I swear he’s subtly rolling his eyes in between each of his lines because he has to be in the same room with Charlie Day. At least on the other side of the relationship they had a solid pair of actors in Christina Applegate and Jim Gaffigan. The two of them aren’t given good jokes to deliver, but they are at least likable. Finally, I found it a little ridiculous that Going the Distance gave such a storybook ending for the characters, because it defied all logic. The reality in this situation is simple, one of these people would have to take a career that was not in the field they planned on working. These morons chose to work for a music studio and a newspaper in the late 2000s, yet they both succeed at finding work that lines up with their interests? That’s not how that works. I know that rom-coms are typically the place where reality is given a break and we are supposed to accept a fairytale happily ever after. However, the movie brought up the conflict created by their careers, so why couldn’t it follow through by making it clear that sometimes sacrifices have to be made for love, and someone might even have to settle for something less than their dreams. It would have at least made me respect Going the Distance a bit more rather than writing it off as a total failure. Rated 1.5/5 Stars •  Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 07/21/20 Full Review Read all reviews

Going the Distance

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