Jessica Miglio/Warner Bros.
Erin (Drew Barrymore) and Garrett (Justin Long) are a couple attempting a long-distance relationship in "Going the Distance."
The latest loathsome exercise in "cute" crudeness to slime its way onto movie screens, "Going the Distance" seems to be the work of soulless hacks who put a conventional romantic-comedy script through some sort of Judd Apatow computer program before enacting it for the cameras.
Erin's wry wit and unfiltered frankness charm newly single Garrett over beer, bar trivia and breakfast the next morning. Their chemistry sparks a full-fledged summer ...
Rating: R for sexual content including dialogue, language throughout, some drug use and brief nudity
Length: 97 minutes
Released: September 3, 2010 Nationwide
Cast: Drew Barrymore, Justin Long, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis, Ron Livingston
Director: Nanette Burstein
Writer: Geoff LaTulippe
The above sentence in no way is intended to disrespect Judd Apatow. But just as Tobe Hooper's 1974 masterpiece "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" opened a door for filmmakers equipped with power tools and a taste for torture but no talent, so too have Apatow's frank and sometimes hilariously rude rom-com box-office smashes -- "Knocked Up," "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" --
convinced lesser writers and directors that love means never having to say you're sorry for underestimating the taste of the audience.
Am I being too harsh? Perhaps. But after suffering through the likes of "All About Steve" and "She's Out of My League" and now this, my resistance is low.
Scripted by a newcomer with the unlikely name of Geoff LaTulippe and directed by Nanette Burstein ("The Kid Stays in the Picture," "American Teen"), a veteran documentarian making her fiction film debut, "Going the Distance" concerns the complications and frustrations of long-distance romance. This is a subject with appeal for postcollegiate audience members who may be facing many of the same challenges as the couple in the story, portrayed by former real-life significant others Justin Long and Drew Barrymore.
Long plays Garrett, a ladies' man who works at a Manhattan record label where his refined taste in music is not appreciated (he prefers "indie" rock to boy bands); Barrymore is Erin, a 30-year-old newspaper intern who uses the 'F' word more frequently than MC Ren on Straight Outta Compton. (The script acknowledges that both the featured businesses are in trouble, yet the offices in the film are as crowded and busy as beehives.)
After bonding over the video game "Centipede" and sharing some bong hits, Garrett and Erin begin to date (as illustrated by an excruciating fun-in-New York montage that finds them walking in long pants into the Coney Island surf, among other wacky activities). When journalism school and her career recall Erin to California, the couple must decide what to do. They decide to remain faithful even while bicoastal, keeping in touch via clumsy phone sex and such witty text messages as (from Garrett to Erin, after one of her stories appears online): "read ur article. awesome!!!"
This premise has promise, but the details and execution sabotage one's sympathy at every turn. Garrett is saddled, predictably, with two utterly unreal comic wingmen (Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis) who are meant to amuse audiences with their discussions of "cougars" and auto-fellatio; in a particularly overextended and insufferable episode, one of them refuses to shut the bathroom door when he defecates.
Barrymore, Long and Christina Applegate (as Erin's sister) aren't protected by the filmmakers, either, thanks to a "table sex" scene and a protracted debate about "dry-humping." None of this contrived behavior is remotely convincing or funny, even in the over-the-top context of a sex comedy; it plays as pandering -- as somebody's misbegotten idea of what elements are required for an "edgy" commercial romantic comedy in 2010. The movie does get one thing right, however: its title. You'll want to put as much distance as possible between yourself and this abomination.
-- John Beifuss: 529-2394
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