Love Crossing Borders

Going the Distance is a recent romantic comedy starring Drew Barrymore and Justin Long. Meeting in New York at a time when neither is really looking for a long-term relationship, the two are together just six weeks before she moves to San Francisco. They decide to continue their romance despite the distance. Hilarity (and some tenderness) ensues.

The entire rom-com genre is filled with movies about complications in a budding relationship. Usually, these complications are outrageously fictitious, or unrealistically inflated just to create enough conflict to fill two hours of film. So I found it rather refreshing that this film was predicated on a very simple and honest complication that didn't really need extra dramatization. Actually, you'd think in this day and age, there would have been more movies built on this kind of premise.

Even if the market floods with such movies over the next few years, I think this one will remain worth seeing because of a solid cast. Drew Barrymore and Justin Long are a very likeable and sympathetic screen couple. Their relationship is believable, and is well established very quickly; since the movie is about them being apart, the film rightly doesn't spend much time on showing them together.

The supporting cast features Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis, Christina Applegate, and Jim Gaffigan, and brief but funny appearances by Ron Livingston and Kristen Schaal. Everybody manages to get laughs without being too outlandish. And the film honors the more serious moments well too.

Of course, I don't really claim to have a soft spot for romantic comedies, so it's likely I could only think of one as being "so good." But this might come about as close to that ceiling as I could imagine. I give it a B. There's not a world of substance here, but it's pretty good for a movie night in at home.