Going the Distance

We’re getting to a point where comedies are trying to be nothing more than funny at any expense. Some of them have the gall enough to just pull it off, but remember a time when comedies, especially romantic ones, were about characters who just so happened to be funny? Essentially comedies are about human behaviour, juxtapositions of opposing things, dramatic irony and so fourth. That we liked the characters enough to laugh along with them was all just icing on the cake. Going the Distance asks us to laugh at its characters but plays instead like a puff of smoke: it exists in front of our eyes and then quickly dematerializes until it has ceased to exist. It’s real because we can see it, taste it, smell it, but it leaves you wondering where the fire is. This is basically the romantic comedy of the next generation. It is rated-R so we all know just how edgy it is; has characters talk in conversations that sound more like over anxious screenwriters than real buddies and drops pop culture references just to show how hip to the scene it is. Some of them are broad (The Beastie Boys) and some of them are just obscure enough to please the real diggers (The Accused). There was once upon a time, before Scream, when movie characters didn’t talk like they knew things that happened in the outside world. Now it seems as though movies feel that if they aren’t referencing the times they aren’t part of them. The tragedy of the whole matter is that we don’t go to Drew Barrymore romantic comedies, by and large, to hear the starlet drop f-bombs and take rips off the bong. We go to see her because she is sweet and cute and because of her charm. You want her to end up with Mr. Right and we pray, above all, that she catches him before screwing it up. That premise worked for Barrymore in her best comedy, Fever Pitch, in which she and Jimmy Fallon talked like real people, acted like real people, fell in love naturally and expressed legitimate concerns about each other before living happily ever after. The problem with Going the Distance is that it’s too hip to its own game to find a compelling narrative arch to put Barrymore in. God forbid a romantic comedy in 2010 ever drop the safety net for long enough to show it has a heart. Garrett (Justin Long, charming his way, one role at a time, into becoming the next John Cusack) has just broken up with his girlfriend because he’s apparently the only guy in New York who doesn’t know that when a woman says not to get her a present for her anniversary, what she really means is get me an even better one instead. He meets Erin (Barrymore) at a bar after interrupting her game of Centipede which she holds the high score for. He buys her a beer to apologize and they end up at his place. Unbeknownst to Garrett, Erin is just doing a summer internship in NY and will be shipping off back home to San Francisco in a few weeks. Having fallen hard for each other they agree to try to make it work long distance while one of them searches for a job within a respectable distance from the other. The simple reality of the long distance relationship is that it oozes predictability. You can see Going the Distance coming from a mile away. If the essence of the film is that long distance is hard, well, the response is: yeah, tell me something I don’t know. The couple yearn to see each other; they have the requisite holiday visit where they do the dirty on her sister’s kitchen table...where her brother-in-law has stopped for a midnight snack; they are jealous of opposite sex co-workers; and then buckle under the pressure of it just not working. He wants her in New York, she doesn’t understand why it needs to be her to make the move, and the drama spins on. Garrett has two best friends who are played by Saturday Night Lives’ Jason Sudeikis and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s Charlie Day. Both of them are unfortunately designated the role of too-clever-for-their-own-good comedic sidekick role, where Sudeikis is defined by a moustache that is supposed to help him pick up lonely older woman, however Day has the common sense to at least play the material straight and with an endearing quality. Not an easy feat for someone with nothing to work with. And then the question remains of whether or not they will break up and find a way to make it work. What do you think? The problem is, you don’t care. There is no stake in this relationship because it all boils down to something everyone already knows: long distance sucks and the film isn’t clever or sweet enough to make us really care about the outcome of this relationship. This is a film that ends up not going the distance at all: it smokes, it swears, it winks in recognition of how with it it is and then it ends. There’s a romance in it, but romantic it is not.

TIFF Red Carpets: The Conspirator

Saturday was the biggest day in terms of sheer star power. Unfortunately we missed Hillary Swank, Sam Rockwell and Tony Goldwyn at the Conviction premiere because we instead decided to stroll around Yorkville and saw no one other than Roger Ebert. Guess we either came too late or the stars keep a low profile on the busy weekend days. Regardless The Conspirator was a film I certainly wanted to check out, not simply because it has a great cast or because I think obert Redford's A River Runs Through It is one of the best American films ever made, but because I have read the script and thought it was a masterpiece.

The writer, James Solomon, was the first to show up. I didn't know who he was but the guy who he was signing for apparently did. He was nice and funny and took pictures for anyone who wanted them. "Don't worry guys," he said to some screaming fans, "I'm just the writer." Nice guy.

This is around the moment that I scream "Holy crap it's Alexis Bledel" prompting my girlfriend, a huge Gilmore Girls fan, to almost have an aneurysm. We didn't expect her, she got there before almost everyone else and showed up in a car and not the trademark SUV. I had my Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 DVD in hopes of catching Blake Lively later on in the day but Alexis only signed for a few people, missing us by about an inch.
Yeah, apparently she must have been saying something to someone because Alexis is looking kind of weird in this one.

One more from the side.

I didn't know what to expect from James McAvoy. Sometimes young stars like to sign one of two autographs to show that they care about the fans but really they just want to run to the press (*cough* Jeremy Renner *cough*), but McAvoy was the real deal. He started out at one end and disappeared right down to the other end. He was gone so long we didn't even realize he hadn't gone in yet and was still signing on his way back as seen here. Unfortunately I didn't have anything for him to sign.

Robin Wright was glowing. Not only did she generally seem to enjoy being amongst her fans but she walked those heels of hers all the way to the end of the line, signing, joking, just being all around lovely. Didn't have anything for her to sign but wish I would have.

Justin long appeared out of nowhere. He only signed a few autographs but he really worked the crowd anyway. This guy could charm just about anyone.

I don't mind if celebrities don't sign autographs as long as they give the fans something to take home. Kevin Kline didn't sign one autograph but he really played to the crowd. He got out, blew kisses to the crowd as if he was royalty and walked over to the press. While there people were calling for him to turn around, which he did, humorously for just a second before snapping back. It was a reminder of why he is one of the few to have won an Oscar for a comedy role.

The one man who I really wanted an autograph from, not surprisingly, didn't sign anything, didn't wave, didn't even act like there were hundreds of people there simply to see him. Oh well, that was a pretty hip scarf Robert Redford was sporting.

The floating head of Robert Redford enjoying his producers more than his fans.