Date Night – Going the Distance
When you go to the Fairy Tale Store, there’s no aisle you can walk down to assemble the ingredients for a scenario where Party A lives in New York, Party B lives in San Francisco and the two parties live happily ever after…in their long distance relationship. That’s not a situation little girls dream of. And it’s not a situation little Michael Sorrentinos have enough willpower or patience to endure.
(Long distance relationships can work. Of course they can. But their success rate hovers around the Mendoza Line. Or, if you prefer to be more current, the Jeter Line.)
So…Going the Distance is not a fairy tale. It is, in fact, the rare romantic comedy that generally avoids the fantastic machinations intended to make single women feel less bad about being single.
Going the Distance is on some real shit. Plain and simple. It feels as if it were written and produced by adults. Granted, “adult” is presently a very loose life status given that we live in the age of 30-year-old boys and women who behave as if 32 is the new 16. Maturity, however, is not completely extinct. And it is a prevailing theme, for the most part, in Going the Distance.
Drew Barrymoore and Justin Long star. They’re together in real life.(*) She plays the party who lives in San Francisco. He plays the party who lives in New York. They meet while she’s interning for a newspaper in New York and decide to have a thing while they share a zip code. Their mutual attraction hinges on 3 factors: 1) they’re both hipsterish 2) they’re both very candid in expressing their intentions and 3) they have legitimate chemistry. When she has to return to the West Coast to complete grad school, they decide to keep doing their thing even as all of the purple mountain majesties and thousands of amber waves of grain stand between them. Hence, our conflict.
There are other people in the movie. Charlie Day. Jason Sudeikis. Christina Applegate. You even get a cameo from Ron Livingston. (He’s the guy from Office Space.) Each of them is pretty effin’ funny. Particularly Charlie Day, who delivers the best line in the movie. Perhaps the best line in any movie so far this year. (I won’t spoil it for you.)
The Liberian Girl and I saw Going the Distance last week. Coming out of the theatre, we were both surprised that such a film showed respect for its audience. We didn’t have to watch Jennifer Aniston pretending she wasn’t Jennifer Aniston. And we didn’t have to watch Jennifer Lopez pretending she was some regular chick worth less than $12 million. We got to see real people–really funny people–doing things that real people do.
Real people play trivia games in bars with strangers then try not to get caught sneaking out of the cute one’s house the next morning. Real people also hate on the dude/chick who appears to treat their partner so awesomely that every other relationship sucks by comparison. And real people, believe it or not, have cinematic moments in the airport.
Many years ago–when Osama bin Laden was merely a recalcitrant scion and not a world-class villain–I was in a long distance relationship with a woman who lived two time zones away. We had found ourselves tiptoeing through a rather delicate moment and made plans for a rendezvous in a city equidistant to each of us. The rendezvous was not nearly as randy as we had hoped it would be. It was quite the opposite. And, at the end of the weekend, we chose to end our relationship. We did so during a cab ride to the airport. Checking in was very quiet. Clearing security was awkward. Sitting at her terminal waiting for her flight to board felt interminable. Eventually they called for her section to board. We hugged one last time. Said the things you’re supposed to say when it’s over and neither of you is happy about it. Then I watched her walk up a ramp and disappear into a 757. Part of me wanted her to turn, run back to me and say what you want people to say when you want the relationship to keep going. The rest of me knew she was too headstrong and too smart to even glance over her shoulder. There was no glance.
I shared that story with the Liberian Girl after we exited the screening of Going the Distance. She did not have one of her own to respond with. Nor did she ask a bunch of superflous questions about my previous relationship. (The Liberian Girl is too smart to be so petty.) I think both of us understood that the people on the screen were genuine avatars and that either of us could have been either of them.
When you’re in a long distance relationship, something very good develops to delude both parties. It convinces them to choose that arrangement despite the obvious obstacle. Sometimes, the good thing overcomes the miles. More often, the miles make the good thing wilt. And the two parties find themselves inside a bottle of gin. At least that’s where I found myself after my good thing walked away from me several years ago.
I won’t tell you how Going the Distance ends. I will tell you that it felt very genuine to me. Watching the two parties in that film fumble so candidly and struggle so earnestly felt like reliving the good parts (and the bad parts) of my own story. The film was not hopelessly romantic. It was not whitewashed of the unfortunate circumstances that happen in real life. And it found a way to keep a sense of humor amidst the pursuit of the impossible. Even when I wanted the film to stop being so real and to divert into fairy tale territory…well…I probably shouldn’t finish that sentence. Good, bad or otherwise, I wouldn’t want to spoil it for you. Although I will tell you there is far more that is good about this film–just as there is far more that is good about the relationships you remember most–than there is anything else.
Besides, the film should be at the cheap movie theatre in your neighborhood next week. And a cheap date is better than no date, right?
DYL MAG SCORE: A 6 point something that rounds up to a 7.
*You’ll have to check with Us Weekly to be sure. I’m no authority on those matters.
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Tim Adkins is a Washington, D.C.-based fellow who writes at Backwards From 30. You can follow him on Twitter @the_capital_t. 
I think you gave a pretty good recap of the movie without giving away too much. That being said, I’m slightly confused about these statements:
“We didn’t have to watch Jennifer Aniston pretending she wasn’t Jennifer Aniston. And we didn’t have to watch Jennifer Lopez pretending she was some regular chick worth less than $12 million. We got to see real people–really funny people–doing things that real people do.”
Is Drew Barrymore considered to be a “real person” not worth more than $12 million? Is it any different watching Drew pretending she’s not Drew than it is with Jennifer A.? The people (Drew Barrymore, Justin Long, etc.) are not “real” people in any real context. None of them would be found living next door to you or me. Or are you saying that they are not megastars in the same stratosphere as the Jens? In that case, with the exception of Drew, I guess you’d be right. And since Drew, for all her fortune and fame, spends less time in the tabloids (now) then your typical megastar, I guess she comes across as being more “real” as well. Maybe. A little.
Anyhoo, I may check this out when it hits redbox.
P.S. – I also like how you shared your own LDR situation. Very sweet.
19/09/2010
@tamara: I think the difference between Drew Barrymore and the two Jennifers is that Drew has managed–despite some pretty long odds–to be more of an actor than she is a celebrity. I think she was fortunate that most of her most scandalous moments occurred before the perpetual information cycle was so…perpetual. In the last 10 years, most of what you hear about her has to do with her work. And not so much with her life. The two Jennifers have not been so fortunate.
That said…that paragraph was meant more as a dig at conventional Hollywood where celebrities get dropped into big budget, assembly line films simply to guarantee name recognition and box office returns. As a result, I think many of those films lack substance. And a good many of them are kinda insulting. They present product-placed scenarios that look more like advertisements than a reflection of real life. (Unlike Going the Distance which felt frighteningly familiar due in large part to the story and the way it was told.) I get that escapism is a primary reason people go to the cinema. But I think the assembly line process too often reduces escapism to absurdities that no one can relate to and that no reasonably intelligent person could possibly enjoy. The two Jennifers were probably very easy targets for trying to discuss such a thing. And maybe using them wasn’t the best rhetorical decision. But that was the intent.
Also…the Liberian Girl and I stumbled onto The Back Up plan just after seeing Going the Distance…and The Back-Up Plan really was insulting. So…she seemed like fair game. Especially given the announcement of the $12 million American Idol deal.
P.S. Thanks for reading.
P.P.S. Thanks for writing.
19/09/2010
Don’t get me wrong, I am in no way defending either Jennifer. Neither of them, esp. JLo, is a particularly good actress. They just keep throwing JLo is these C level rom-coms, and you’re right, it is quite insulting. I never even heard of ‘The Back-Up Plan’ until I saw it at Redbox. She has made more money from doing several things, none particularly well, than anyone I can think of. I think Drew tries to make (literally, not just star in) relatable movies in this genre, such as ‘He’s Just Not That Into You,’ which, while not a new concept, and even with the inclusion of “megastars” Ben Affleck & Jennifer Aniston (in one of her better roles) gave us main characters that could have been us or our friends (except that they were all Caucasian, but I digress.)
I just wanted clarification on the “real people” statement. I see where you’re coming from now. I totally agree with you re: Drew currently being recognized more for her career than her personal life (btw, I think she & Justin broke up prior to making the movie, but remain friends. Not that I pay attention to that kind of stuff.)
19/09/2010