Going The Distance

"These people actually use their brains," is what my reaction was on seeing this movie. Going the Distance is a romantic comedy, which actually seems made by intelligent people.

The IMDB plot snippet hints that this movie is about a couple trying to make it work long distance, so the first thing that came to my mind was Love Aaj Kal, but the movies are completely different. My beef with romantic comedies is that the characters are always dumb and the resolution to "big incident/problem" in rom-coms is always too simplistic.

Fights, mis-understandings and that sort happens in this movie too... but they aren't drawn out. Like real people, Garrett and Erin deal with problems as they come along. There are a couple of moments in the movie where I was all prepared to roll my eyes expecting the predictable (predictable for movies that is). But the movie handles it smartly. There is no extended montage where the characters have broken up and are missing each other, then realise that they actually love each other, run back to reconcile and apologize. Thank God none of that happens. I found the jokes hilarious, and even the stock dumb friend characters seemed real.

I'm currently in a place where most (all?) of my good friends are in different timezones. Keeping in touch with them is a difficult act. Any chance of meeting them depends on time, money and visas - which seem to be only influenced by black magic. Seeing a movie that handles such related stuff, and seeing it handle them well, is why I liked this movie. Go watch it.