Long Shot (2019) - Movie Review

One of the oldest tropes in romantic comedy is the idea of mismatching someone conventionally attractive with someone unconventionally attractive. If you’ve seen any movie or any sitcom in the last handful of decades, you’ve seen this in action. It usually takes the form of a schlubby guy who is either going out with or is married to a beautiful woman, with the internal joke being the audience questioning how he got her.

Today’s film, the latest from my favourite film studio working right now Point Grey Pictures, is another in this grand tradition, and after narrowly dodging a bullet with their last film, I was honestly worried that this was going to be the point where the bottom fell out of this studio’s fantastic track record. I should really stop underestimating these guys because, while this is indeed a rom-com, its real ambitions are bigger. A lot bigger. Like, this is the kind of shit we need in circulation right now.

Since we’re talking about Point Grey again, let’s get the obvious thing out of the way first: The soundtrack. I still don’t know what specifically it is but every film with Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg attached as producers always have this knack for marrying licensed music picks with astoundingly fitting dramatic and/or comedic moments. This is no exception, although the effect is a lot more subtle than I’m used to seeing from these guys. We have the initial meet-cute at a Boyz II Men concert, we have them bonding over 2 Chainz’ Birthday Song, and them slow-dancing alone to Roxette’s It Must Have Been Love. These aren’t the usual bombastic choices, but as supports for the main couple, they work really damn well in showing two people bonding over music. Kind of explains Rogen’s entire schtick in that regard, honestly.

And speaking of the main couple, this is a pairing that is supposed to sound odd on paper but work really well in practice… except the casting here is a little too good. Rogen’s brand of stoner champion has always had a lovable affability to it, and after seeing Theron play the epitome of the modern mother in Tully, her as the driven but overworked Secretary of State is an unsurprisingly good fit. To say nothing of their chemistry together, which is so warm and natural and weirdly realistic that the casting becomes an afterthought after a while. It gets the crucial heart of the story down, which is good because the rest of it is an uphill struggle.

Along with being a seemingly-standard rom-com, this also doubles as a political satire. It literally opens on white nationalists, so let’s be clear about how prevalent this is. With a script half-done by Dan Sterling, whose last attempt at political comedy turned out less-than-ideal back with The Interview, this could’ve turned out a bit dicey… were it not for the other half being done by Liz Hannah, co-writer of The Post.

That kind of experience with delivering real-world shit comes in very handy here, as the political barbs thrown are quite accurate without becoming too much of a caricature. I mean, the sitting President here (played by Bob Odenkirk) is a former TV star who has ties to a media conglomerate run by Gollum. No prizes for guessing the target here, and I’m dead serious about the Gollum comparison, since Andy Serkis does a brilliant job as the twisted media mogul Parker Wembley.

But that’s fairly basic by this point, seeing a film from left-leaning creatives that acts almost like an alternate reality fantasy about what it would be like if Hillary had won the 2016 election. It may feel relevant, but it’s not exactly new ground. What is new ground, quite frankly, is where the film takes its political scalpel. It establishes Theron’s Charlotte as part of the bigger rat race, fighting to make her mark on issues that she cares about, but in anything political, no change comes without compromise. Here is where things get real, so strap in.

Now, with how didactic I can get in these reviews, I know full well that I’m not the best person to be talking about this. But if we were to sideline every argument made on grounds of hypocrisy, literally nothing would ever get said, let alone done. What this film boils down to, keeping the Trump/Hillary stand-ins in mind, is the need for bipartisanship. Or, more specifically, for leftists to be a little more open to working with those on the right. Politics may govern how the world runs (as much as we may wish otherwise), but it’s not exactly the best foundation for friendships. Or relationships. Or any real long-standing connection between two people. If we are only able to work with people we 100% agree on, I hope you like standing in front of the mirror for ours because that’s the only practical way that’s going to happen.

Seth Rogen’s Fred doesn’t get that. He’s the kind of hard-line idealist that can only see things one particular way, and compromising that perspective is out of the question. But compromise is an inevitable thing and sometimes needs to be done, something he learns through one of the least boring Third-Act Break-Ups I think I’ve ever covered on this blog.

It’s a refrain I keep seeing (usually from conservatives, admittedly) that the left has become so forthright in their views that they are turning into their own brand of fascism. I would normally disregard that nonsense immediately but… well, I won’t get into spoilers, but it’s not every day that a character’s tattoo ends up showing their own development as a character. It’s such a weirdly subtle, and yet incredibly blunt, method of illustrating this idea that the fact I’m even having to think about it rationally means that these guys might actually be onto something. I mean, the dictionary definition of a bigot is being intolerant to people who hold different opinions, and that is what Fred is.

And yet, even with all that political musing and examination, this doesn’t feel like it’s shoving anything down our throats. Because the core romance is so on-point, and because the political remarks are grounded in tangible reality, they mesh together to make for a remarkably breezy offering that just happens to have some really cool ideas at its core. As someone who does tend to rant and rave about certain political issues, and who is also growing tired of the constant back-and-forth, I felt like I needed this in my media diet, if for no other reason than to make me stop being so hard-line about certain things. It being funny as fuck and grin-inducingly cute is just icing on the cake for me.