Real-life couple Drew Barrymore and Justin Long star in this romantic-comedy about the tribulations of a long-distance relationship.
Erin (Barrymore) and newly single Garrett (Long) charm one another one night over beer and bar trivia and so begins a full-fledged summer fling. But, as they always knew, it comes to end when Erin heads home to San Francisco and Garrett stays put in New York for his job. The six weeks of romping has inadvertently become meaningful though, and neither are sure they want it to end. Despite the opposite coasts, with the help of a lot of texting, sexting and late-night phone calls they might be able to make it work and find a little love.
This is the feature debut from Academy Award-nominated documentary filmmaker Nanette Burstein (The Kid Says in the Picture).
The rom-com is in a pretty sorry state at the moment. It's tempting to place all the blame squarely at Katherine Heigl's feet, but she's only part of the problem. Going The Distance should be commended for at least attempting to do something a bit different, but it ultimately fails to distinguish itself in any significant way.
Instead of a nefarious love rival, a ridiculous misunderstanding or a secret identity, the main hurdle facing the two main characters here is an actual real-world problem – they live in different cities.
It often seems like rom-coms rely far too much on crazy contrivances to keep our couple apart, instead of focusing on issues that affect actual relationships. So while it's great that Going The Distance attempts to address this, the movie is so lifeless at times, I found myself actually missing the crazy contrivances.
Justin Long is a very watchable character actor who's developed into a nicely offbeat leading man, but his character here is strangely unlikable. Barrymore (Long's real-life on-again, off-again girlfriend) is her usual endearing self, but a lot of their supposed comedic set-pieces evokes the sensation of witnessing a couple who think everything the other person does is superlatively amusing, but are insufferable to all around them.
Going The Distance feels like too nice of a movie to rag on, but I really struggled to get much out of this. It's not painful to sit through, and the interesting supporting cast gets a few nice moments, but this is simply too meagre to recommend.
By Dominic Corry, Flicks.co.nz
a very good, light, funny movie that leaves u feeling happy
all the way through. It has touches of real life which make it believable. I am more of a fan of American versions of this stuff done well. I'd easily see again on dvd for the extra stuff that comes with it
This is a fun comedy with a lot of laughs. Erin and Garrett decided to have a long distance relationship after spending a few great weeks together. This has some really funny scenes in this and solid performances from Drew Barrymore and Justin Long. I do recommend this for fans of romantic comedies
This movie is definitely going to be put with my dvd collection when it comes out, wonderful laughs and believable in places, glad to see a guy cry finally!! but all in all very good movie if you and your girlfriends are stuck in a rut and need a little pick me up to show that life isn't all bad.
was a good way to spend a couple of hours on a wet and wild day. most probably a chick flick altho there are a lot of 'guy moments' that could make some people cringe. go check it out for light entertainment.
Art imitates life in this movie, or at least, the audience would be forgiven for assuming so.
If it is at times a bit indie-by-numbers without the courage of all its convictions, this is a grittier, saltier than usual rom-com populated with laughs, smarts and a couple you can root for.
Going the Distance is, in a way, a remarkable film: It's hard to imagine any romantic comedy going wrong in so many different ways.
Raunchy, but still sweet and charming light entertainment.
Barrymore and Long make a cute couple, but between the overindulged supporting cast, second-hand situations and efforts to be ‘adult’, there are just too many obstacles.
We've been told the NZ release date for this flick is Thursday, 2nd Sep 2010.
Release date: September 2nd 2010.
We haven't received times for this movie in this location yet. However these are updated as cinemas announce them, so check back soon. Hopefully the lovely cinemas in your location will choose to play it shortly. ~Ed.
