Going The Distance

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Going The Distance has been reviewed pretty harshly elsewhere. How to put this politely... they're wrong. Going The Distance is everything a rom-com should be - and equally importantly avoids many of the most irritating cliches of this genre.

This is a rom-com where the two leads aren't kept apart by a ridiculous contrivance that could be solved simply by people having proper conversations with each other. This is a rom-com where the two leads actually appear to want to have hot, sweaty sex with each other, a detail too often overlooked in the rom-coms that treat romance with the kid gloves of a maiden aunt who prefers to consider marriage and babies as a completely separate - and boring - deal to two people fancying the pants off each other.

Most unusually of all, female lead Erin (Drew Barrymore) is likeable, funny and not neurotic, while male lead Garrett (Justin Long) is likeable and funny without being a Judd Apatow-style manchild. In an example of blatant sexism his character is also required to gratuitously take his clothes off for a couple of scenes, which is clearly shocking, wrong and exploitative.