New Line Cinema, Offspring Enterprises
Drew Barrymore, Justin Long, Charlie Day, Jason Sudekis, Christina Applegate, Ron Livingston, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Jim Gaffigan, Natalie Morales, Kelli Garner
This romantic comedy is about a couple, Erin (Drew Barrymore) and Garrett (Justin Long) and their attempt to keep their love alive even though they are separated, one in California and one in NYC. They meet in New York City and hit it off. Garrett is trying hard to make it in the recording industry, but currently has a menial job. Erin is a wannabe reporter, who thinks she has a great chance for a real reporting job, but it isn’t to be, so she decides to head out to California to finish her degree. They are both anxious to keep their relationship alive, but neither wants enough to give up their dream. So they decide to live on opposite coasts and see each other when they can.
This is a very interesting approach to the chick flick genre, because most of the movie is told from the gentleman’s side of things. Also, they are in “like” with each other, but it doesn’t seem deep enough to keep it from being mostly superficial. This is an unusual approach to the one typically taken by movies of this type. We get to care enough about the characters that we are concerned with what happens to them, but if it doesn’t work out it’s not going to be that devastating to anyone, even us as voyeurs to their situation. To top it off we have really good secondary characters. Erin has a grumpy and constantly criticizing sister Corrine (Cristina Applegate) and Garrett has a friend in Box (Jason Sudekis) who doesn’t give very great advice all the time. They provide a lot of the comedy relief for us. The way they meet is really cute. Erin is playing “Centipede” in a bar, and Garrett is a fantastic of that came. He interrupts her attempt at the high score and finds out that she is the one he was chasing for the top score all along. Can you build a relationship on the love of a video game? Well of course there is a lot more going on than that.
What we have here is a chick flick that is ok to take a guy to. It’s clever and witty and Drew and Justin work well together and make such a cute couple. By the end of the film we really like them. I enjoyed it. It’s not a great film, but is quiet an enjoyable romantic comedy and I recommend it.
EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog
Movie Review - Going the Distance (2010) {R},
