Review: GOING THE DISTANCE

Drew Barrymore and Justin Long have some serious chemistry in their new movie GOING THE DISTANCE.

Garrett (Justin Long) just got dumped, again. He’s a serial dater who thinks that he just doesn’t understand females, but really just hasn’t met the one. While drowning his sorrows at a local bar with his friends Dan (Charlie Day) and Box (Jason Sudeikis), he meets Erin (Drew Barrymore), a newspaper intern with a mouth like a sailor. A couple beers and a one night stand later, they end up dating. The bad part is, Erin is moving back to her home town because her internship is over. Now Garrett and Erin have to struggle with a long distance relationship, and the possibility that it just might not work out.

Although completely predictable, this movie was still entertaining. Sure, it was another one of those “boy meets girl, girl moves away, things get hard but everything works out in the end because love prevails” kind of movies, but the storyline isn’t really what makes the movie. This film is funny because of the actors in it and their line delivery.

Barrymore and Long were amazing together. This might be due to them being a couple while filming… or just that they both are completely adorable! Barrymore has a pretty vulgar mouth in this one, and I gotta say, I love it! (Maybe it’s because I too have that problem!) Barrymore is complimented by Christina Applegate, who plays her uptight sister. Applegate shines as a middle class housewife with a mediocre husband and a mischievous child. Her characters fear of germs and pessimistic attitude only enhance her humorous quality. It’s nice to see Charlie Day in something other than IT’S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA, despite the fact that he plays the exact same character. Still, he fit in quite nicely with the cast.

One scene stood out as different, and rather genuine to me. Barrymore and Long’s characters are on their first date, and the film looks very raw. In this scene, nothing seems scripted. It’s almost as if the audience was witnessing an actual date. I don’t know if this is only because they actually were a couple, or if there actually was a script for this scene, but it was mesmerizing. It was a really cute, genuine looking scene.

My vote is that I love Drew Barrymore… She’s the bee’s knees!

OVERALL RATING: 4 out of 5 stars