Going the Distance

Here is a romantic comedy with an interesting, real-world premise: boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, but boy and girl have professional lives in different cities and have to endure a long-distance relationship on the phone, seeing each other only every month or so. Which of them should abandon their current job so they can be together properly as a couple? Justin Long plays Garrett, an A&R man in Manhattan; Drew Barrymore is Erin, a would-be journalist, who's doing an internship at a New York paper, but must return to San Francisco soon. (In time-honoured movie-journalist style, she is initially seen arriving late in her newspaper office, scurrying chaotically along, exchanging badinage with various ‑ ‑ people along the way.) Barrymore and Long are likable enough performers and they do their professional best with this material. There is a touchingly acted "breakup" scene. But the script, by newcomer Geoff LaTulippe, is frankly dull and crass for a worryingly large amount of the time, and it includes a very seriously misjudged Hitler joke, which really belonged on the cutting-room floor. Christina Applegate plays Erin's married sister, and she, too, works hard, but has nothing to work with. A long haul.