Going the Distance

Meet Garret (Justin Long) is your atypical man in his late twenties (presumably). His “boy next door” image ensures more often than not that he has company. He is not averse to being in a relationship but he just doesn’t know how to sustain it in the long term. He has no clue on the expectations of the fairer sex when in a relationship. To quote, “I didn’t get you a birthday gift coz you asked me not to”. Duh!!! Even I know what THAT means. After every such instance he finds himself at the local bar with his best friends Dan (Charlie Day) & Box (Jason Sudeikis) wondering what could have possibly gone wrong. Not getting drunk. Just getting his mind off. And if he is really off his mind then he indulges himself in a game of Centipede.


Meet Erin (Drew Barrymore) is 31 years old. Very Girl Next Door. She is studying journalism @ Stanford and stays in San Francisco with her sister Corrine (Christina Applegate). She is completing her internship in New York. A few twists of fate in her life led her to drop out of school and follow a guy all over the place (with no references to which places). But over time, realization dawns on her and she eventually gets dumped. She picks up the pieces and gets back to completing her grad school. She is an extremely basic woman with almost little or no hang ups – a man’s dream come true and decent looking to boot. And she is brilliant @ Centipede.

And if u haven’t made the connect yet, that’s how Garret and Erin meet. @ the local bar in New York over a game of Centipede. Garret interrupts her game rudely to say the least. However, when he realizes that she is “ËRL” – the highest scorer on that very Centipede machine – he is quick to apologise and offers to buy her a drink. Well cupid strikes. And quite quickly at that. Before you know it the two are getting really really REALLY close. This despite knowing that the affair can last for not more than 6 weeks coz Erin will be headed back to SFO after her internship. At the end of 6 weeks, Garret drops Erin off to the airport. Both of them have pretty much resigned to the end of the affair. However, they are unable to go through with it and decide to give the long distance relationship a really good shot.

Directed by Nanette Burstein (not known for much per se), GTD is quite funny in parts and very entertaining in the first half. It gets a but mushy towards the 2nd half where our cute couple are struggling to maintain the excitement in the Long Distance Relationship. But it doesn’t drag all over the place. The direction is quite decent. Both Drew Barrymore and Justin Long pull off an above average performance. The support cast is also quite entertaining. Not to mention that there have not been too many movies made on the topic. So definitely a different Rom Com positively. Worth a dekko and even an DVD rental or buy if you haven’t been able to catch up with it on the big screen. 5 on 10 for this one.