Going The Distance

I felt very strange watching Going The Distance. I felt like Garret’s roommate Dan who has the room on the other side of a very thin wall. I was allowed to listen to this relationship but I wasn’t allowed to participate. This film made me feel like a voyeur.
 
Going The Distance is the story of Garret and Erin, Justin Long (Drag Me To Hell) and Drew Barrymore (Whip It). They meet at a bar when neither of them is looking for a relationship. Garret just got dumped and Erin only has six weeks left on a summer internship. They start the evening with animosity but soon find that they have a lot in common. They begin dating but at the end of six weeks neither of them wants to let go. So they begin a long distance romance full of inconvenience, disappointment and frustration.
 
I believe that the reason that this movie made me fell so uncomfortable is that Justin and Drew are dating in real life. Their date scenes had an improvised feel and I felt like a paparazzi hiding in the bushes. Also, a lot of the comedy came from discomfort and crudeness. Instead of laughing at the awkward moments, I squirmed, especially with Christina Applegate. When she walked in on her sister having sex on the dinning room table, her disgust was so convincing it was like she walked in on the actors having sex instead of the characters. I was right there with her.
 
Before attending this film I heard a lot of good things about this script from other sources, but the movie did not work for me. Others may be fine with this style of comedy, but I’ll pass. I don’t like crudeness as a comedy choice. In order to work, that type of behavior must be grounded and come from the character. Maybe Drew Barrymore does cuss, smoke pot, and hold her own belching with the boys, but it didn’t seem natural on her. I really didn’t enjoy this film at all.

Rating: Rent It Not worth the frequent flyer miles