Going the distance

Directed by Nanette Burstein. Starring Drew Barrymore, Justin Long, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis, Christina Applegate 15A cert, gen release, 109 min

THE PRESENCE of Drew Barrymore in a romantic comedy suggests that you can expect something a tad saltier than industry-standard pap. Drew may be many things, but she’s not Jennifer Aniston.

Well, there is some rude language in Going the Distance. The film-makers do make several pathetic attempts to get down with the kids. But nobody is going to mistake it for (500) Days of Summer. It's just an old-school hankie-dampener with a bit of extra swearing.

The great unseen, unmentioned – not to say uninvolved – presence here is Judd Apatow. As in so many of his films, the plot is merely a framework on which to hang endless, supposedly amusing, partly improvised comic riffs. Drew plays a journalist. Justin Long is a drone in the music industry. After getting it on at a bar in Manhattan, they begin a relationship, but, just as things are hotting up, Drew is forced to move to San Francisco. Can they, ahem, go the distance?

The banter between Barrymore and Long, much of it carried out by phone and text, is bearable enough. True, the couple are not nearly as adorable to us as they are to each other, but they attain a plateau of low-level gushiness that remains tolerably tolerable throughout.

The real problem is to do with the inevitable slacker friends. Apatow’s First Law of Comedy decrees that all men between the ages of 16 and 35 will babble endlessly about penises, beer, effusions and the unknowability of other genders. Fair enough, if you have Paul Rudd or Seth Rogan to supply the quips. If, however, you are relying on Charlie Day (beats me) and Jason Sudeikis (no joy there, either) to do the business, then you are in for a very torrid, very tedious affair. The comics’ endless routines about pigeons, poop and parping break new records for outstaying the most lukewarm of welcomes.

Worse still are the various half- hearted attempts to seem hip. “My label would never sign this band,” Jason says as the couple watch their favourite, supposedly edgy combo. It’s The Boxer Rebellion, a fourth-generation Strokes retread with recently acquired Vampire Weekend tendencies. Right on, daddyo!