The new romantic comedy “Long Shot” depends on a number of well-worn romantic tropes. It’s a workplace romance of sorts, featuring a budding romance between a boss and an employee. It is an also politically-aware comedy, which pokes fun at the American political situation alongside the raunchy comedic diversions. And it is also a story of an unlikely pair finding romance despite, and because of, their differences.
It’s important to note that “Long Shot” follows in a long line of films like it. It lends the entire scenario a sheen of familiarity, which is comforting. And “Long Shot” is comforting. We know where it will go, and we begin to suspect where the telegraphed twists and turns will take us. “Long Shot” is even emphatically funny in some moments but its ability to mix the politics with the romance and its conventionality with its raunchiness begin to diminish the more the film goes on and for all its charms the more I think about it the less profound the central arguments seem to be.
Politics are integral to “Long Shot.” Even if the film is primarily a romantic comedy, its role as a skewering of contemporary US politics is inextricably linked to its values. In the film, Charlotte Field is the youngest Secretary of State in American history. Her president is choosing not to seek a second term and Field is poised to launch a campaign in the quest to become the first female president. Her quest is helped and hampered by Fred Flarksy. Fred is a childhood friend of Charlotte and an out-of-work journalist. They meet by chance and she hires him to write her speeches. Romance follows. That part is assured—it’s baked into the title—and it’s important to be fair to “Long Shot” and point out that on this point it’s committed.
Certainly, the central crisis strains some credulity but what “Long Shot” has going for it is the chemistry between Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen as the two leads. They work excellently together. The film is devoted to the implausibility of the refined Charlotte being with the rough Fred. And, visually, the pair together recalls Rogen’s work in “Knocked Up,” where he played an underwhelming average-joe alongside a blonde beyond his reach. Rogen is better here. He’s more charming, his acting has improved, and the relationship is more feasible. As a whole, though, “Knocked Up” is more assured. For the central issue that made “Knocked Up” work is sorely lacking in “Long Shot.” In theory, all a good romantic film needs is the couple at the centre. But, “Long Shot” is devoted to creating a specific world in a specific time and for this to work the characters around Fred and Charlotte need to have a depth, which is where the film comes up short.
When the film is funny, it is incredibly funny. There is sex scene that makes no sense and becomes more and more hilarious the more it goes on. Despite shuffling uncomfortably between political commentary and zany bizarreness, the first two-thirds of the film is able to pull off the dichotomy. But by the time “Long Shot” runs its natural course to its third act, the revelations begin feeling more trite than profound. It thinks it’s making grand points about men and women, about politicians and optics, and about race and culture. But instead it all seems mostly toothless and lazy.
The end result is a film that seems marked by ambivalence. The best moments of “Long Shot” are not incisive. Instead, they are compelling for their sloppy charm. But the film is centrally dependent on an illusion of sharpness and not on sloppy charm. “Long Shot” directly invokes the current American political climate and I suspect the filmmakers do this as a way of considering how romance and friendship can be navigated in a politically fraught world. But the film never has the gumption to make real points or criticisms. For every searing point it could make, it walks it back to end up shrugging at the world rather than offering any eviscerating analysis. In the final third, a secondary character reveals their political allegiance in a moment that’s meant to impress with its moderated cultural awareness. It doesn’t work. The more “Long Shot” invokes the real world, the less funny it becomes.
At the film’s end, we’re meant to presume that classy Charlotte and regular Frank can meet somewhere in the middle. It’s not hard to believe. Theron and Rogen consistently sell the charm. The more pressing issue of conflicting polarities that the film can’t reconcile is its incessant zaniness, which ignores reality, and the tetchy commentary on the real world. It’s not that that pairing can never work but here it doesn’t. The laughs work when they come but they fade away and what we’re left with is something a little unsatisfying.
“Long Shot” is currently playing at local theatres.
