#15 - I'm Still Mad About The Movie Long Shot

It’s December the official month of Romcoms. An entire genre that has been regulated to formulaic Hallmark movies that are vaguely Christian and painfully heteronormative, and we could all really benefit from the big studios remembering how iconic a good romcom can be. Which is why I’ve gathered you here today, to rant about a movie that came out two years ago, because I am nothing if not timely with my pop-culture takes!

I should love the movie Long Shot. It’s a romcom, about politics, with good leads. And I’m a big fan of putting super funny, not super conventionally attractive men at the helm of RomComs. Think Billy Crystal in Where Harry Met Sally. Attractive, movie star, but relatably hot. Neighbor hot. In general, I feel like we’re casting people that are too attractive these days in all things. I’m so sick of watching the most beautiful people on the planet fall in love. It’s so boring! Hot people falling in love happens every day. You know what’s way more interesting? An uggo dealing with their insecurities in order to pursue vulnerable human connection! Sounds like inherent conflict to me.

It’s hard to tell people apart when they look so same-y and honestly, we don’t make horny movies anymore, and the horniness of the audience’s attraction is being sanitized by making all the leading men hot dudes into walking Men’s Health magazine covers with too many abs and no soul.

Anyway, the movie Long Shot. It came out when I was too burned out on real-life politics, I did not want to consume media about fake politics. But it stuck out as one of the movies I was excited to see (eventually). Then, one afternoon, I got super stoned and watched it with my best friend. Honestly? Should have been one of my best movie-watching experiences. I was hyped about a possible new entry into my favorite movie rotation, Seth Rogen is her first (and only) celebrity crush, Charlize doesn’t usually put in anything less than a stellar performance, let’s do this.

I…did not finish the movie.

That’s so rare! I feel the need to emphasize how rare that is.

I happily finish garbage movies all the time. Like I have absolutely consumed the live-action Bratz movie upwards of 10 times. That movie is over two hours long. Goes down real easy.

A movie doesn’t even have to be definably “good” for it to be one of my favorites. Yet, this movie, I could not handle it.

I was too enraged by all the missed opportunities to ever enjoy it. The tone was weirdly serious at times, like they were trying to really dig in and say something about politics but they never really decided on what they were saying. There was a weird amount of violence for a romcom, they weren’t in great outfits, I didn’t care about the supporting characters (despite loving the actors) so that didn’t help anything either.

So, despite the fact that it came out in 2019 and nobody fucking cares, let’s get into why this movie makes my blood boil!

I thought this movie was going to be about a smart/curmudgeonly writer (Rogen) being hired to write for a beautiful-but-losing-her-steadfast-ideologies politician (Theron). We would watch the two of them balance each other worst traits and fall in love over snarky conversations about their beliefs and how to best help the world. It instead is…a weird meandering story of two people who knew each other in high school (and kissed once and because it’s a Seth Rogen movie there’s like a solid five minutes about him as a thirteen-year-old getting a boner) finding each other again and never developing crushes on who they are today but instead weirdly relies on them kind of knowing each other back then.

Rogen doesn’t seem particularly good at his job, she’s compromising her beliefs in the most obvious ways possible (I would love a movie about politics to not have the most ham-handed conversation of tit-for-tat dark money woowoo but Aaron Sorkin cursed us in the mid-90s and we’ve never recovered) and they never build believable tension. Their first kiss should have absolutely come mid-fight about politics, not because there was massively outsized violence and they’re hiding and scared?

It adds nothing that they knew each other. It’s almost like the writers the whole time are just trying to account for the audience not believing they’d end up together. But like, beautiful women end up with funny dudes all the time? That’s not at all something I have to suspend my disbelief about?

I just feel like there have been very few original romcoms in the last few years, and I really miss them. I miss having complete and messy women on screen, who despite being burned by life/past loves decide to believe in themselves and fall in love again. Give me more divorcée romcoms, more romcoms starring a fat woman in which the plot does not revolve around her weight, more romcoms about lesbians in which both of them are firmly and securely out of the closet.

Every single time I vacuum my apartment I think about the scene in The Wedding Planner (that’s supposed to show us that Jlo’s life is sad and empty because she comes home from her well-paying job and does meticulous chores and eats a delicious looking salad while watching TV) (the horror!). Women living their lives, in big and small ways is always something I love to watch. It’s the same reason I deeply adore the set designs of teenage bedrooms in movies, they always go so hard and capture something about the essence of humans want to express themselves through magazine collages.

Sally Albright has incredible sweaters and doesn’t want kids but does want to order in the most annoying way possible when getting food. She’s messy, we see her go on failed dates, we root for her because she’s smart and quippy and capable, but she’s going through a big breakup and is trying to find her footing again, and isn’t that compelling? Bridget Jones telling her ex to shove it as she quits her job only to be told by Mr. Darcy that she’s perfect “just as she is” (even with the smoking, and the drinking, and the vulgar mother, and her weighing a wildly dreaded 135lbs) is super impactful because we see her vacuuming her apartment in rollers practicing small talk and saying Chechnya over and over again and we root for her successes! She makes blue soup by accident! We’ve all been there!!

I really wanted Long Shot to become a modern classic. A romcom about a woman who is great at her job finding a man who challenges her in the best ways, who isn’t intimidated by her success, and is a super supportive & funny partner. I had figured the comedy was going to come from others reacting to their relationship, rather than a lot of it coming from self-disgust from Rogen’s half. It was a bummer, I’m still mad about it, because I think they had all the right ingredients and just overprooved and underbaked.

So, with that, I’m off to rewatch The Holiday and be jarred by the very weird use of a movie trailer announcer voice for voiceovers over Cameron Diaz’s scenes (it only happens twice, which is every weirder, make it a thing or not, Nancy!) and I might follow that up with Bridget Jones because it should absolutely be in the great pantheon of must-watch in December movies and I think the Christmas vibes often get overlooked.

And remember, Love Actually only has two storylines with any emotional satisfaction, but you’ll still end that movie feeling all warm & fuzzy because that little girl sings the shit out of All I Want for Christmas Is You and a rousing musical number at the end of a movie absolves it of all sins. (How else do you think Pitch Perfect got popular?)