Going the Distance – Review

A quick Google search of the term ‘long distance relationships’ will bring a slew of sites offering tips to survive one, and in 2005 more than 3.5 million Americans were involved in a LDR – a perfect acronym for our text messaging generation. While Skype, Facebook, and other technologies have closed our world into closer quarters, what those websites don’t offer, is perhaps the most important aspect of the LDR: the trying. While wrapped within all of those familiar rom-com conventions, Going the Distance plays with the difficulties and possibilities of the trying in a LDR enough, to give the film a little boost.

Drew Barrymore and Justin Long have great chemistry and the script offers plenty of situations in need of their veteran comedic charms. It also helps that the supporting cast is game, especially Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis and his time machine mustache, who offers some of the funniest moments in the film. Every time the film nearly goes completely into romantic-comedy conventions, it pops a bit of reality in, which gives the film a little heart, where most of these films feel fake. Honesty goes  along way in films like this, and we really don’t get that much. Going the Distance has the vague sense of familiarity, with the happy ending – hey, I’m not spoiling the ending, because you know it by the end of the opening credits – the wacky friends, the caring sister, but in the acts of trying and failing – a key to a successful LDR and the film, that lead to the film getting points for the effort. The film never gets too deep, but it never promised it was going too, as it just tackles the trying broadly. But it is one of the more funnier rom-com films recently.

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