Reviving romcom

After a career as an award-winning documentarian, Nanette Burnstein has directed an intelligent and psychologically valid romantic comedy about two young lovers struggling with the difficulties of maintaining a long-distance relationship.

Geoff LaTulippe's witty screenplay is a little tedious in places, but nevertheless achieves an unusually sophisticated level of commentary regarding the nature of love, monogamy and gender equality. This is the antithesis of longstanding trends in modern cinema, wherein the prevailing worldview is sexist, adolescent and embarrassing.

Drew Barrymore (hot off her equally empowering feminine coming-of-age tale, Whip It) stars with Justin Long, rumored to be among the considerable list of her real-life romantic interests. The pair starts off after a seeming one night stand. Barrymore's Erin is destined to relocate in a short period of time, and Long's Garrett has just been left by another in a string of girlfriends disinterested in his reluctance to commit. Needless to say, they enter into their affair professing to each other and themselves their intention to keep it light and indeterminate. This plan is eventually abandoned when Erin leaves New York for San Francisco to pursue grad school, and it is here where the real fun (or the lack thereof) begins.

Both actors are in fine form, but their chemistry is less than thrilling. This may have more to do with the fact that watching two people pine after each other from afar is bound to be less interesting than other more directly engaging scenarios. Thanks to excellent writing, high production values and redeeming themes, one wishes very much to like the film, but it can be trying at times.

Anyone who has ever experimented with long-distance romance will recognize the obstacles faced by the blighted pair: the anguished trips to the airport after all too short visits, the jealousy (however deftly managed), the inadequacy of communicating solely via phone and Internet, the complications of living in different time zones, the abstinence endured by the monogamous and so on. Whether or not such material makes for particularly compelling viewing is another matter.

Though occasionally hilarious and undeniably winsome, the film takes rather too long establishing its characters and the basis of their affection. The montages of romantic interludes are as trite as it gets. However, one forgives Going the Distance these shortcomings. In light of its superiority to other films in the genre, the film is frankly remarkable.

Costars Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis as Garrett's pals and Christina Applegate and Jim Gaffigan as Erin's sister and brother-in-law add an ensemble feel, enriching the somewhat strained premise and adding in the majority of the laughs. Day and Sudeikis steal many a scene together, playing contrary to the typical stereotype of the insensitive buddy team, encouraging rather than discouraging sensitivity and commitment to the relationship.

Unlike so many other modern romantic comedies, the obstacles faced by our protagonists are real. There is no battle of the sexes here, where some fictive ditzy female and a macho sexist hunk assault each other's self-respect until one of them (guess who) is sufficiently humbled to make a union feasible. Burnstein's lovers both demonstrate self-reliance, maturity and talent. Their problem is the financial necessity of following their respective careers in opposite directions.

Without spoiling the ending, some mention of the satisfactory nature of the conclusion is unavoidable. Featuring a climax that threatens to steer the film toward the typical sexist nonsense that passes for resolution in many romcoms today, Burstein and LaTulippe almost certainly consciously veer suddenly back in a more laudable direction. Whatever the film is worth as an entertainment, it is an admirable addition to a sickly genre.

James Walling can be reached at
jwalling@praguepost.com