LONG SHOT (15)
★★★★ ★
A CHILDHOOD crush blossoms into seemingly impossible romance in this crowd-pleasing comedy.
When he was 13, journalist Fred Flarsky (Seth Rogen) fell hopelessly under the spell of his 16-year-old babysitter.
Decades later, the girl of his hormone-addled dreams, Charlotte Field (Charlize Theron), is US Secretary of State, and has been endorsed
by President Chambers (Bob Odenkirk) as his successor.
If Charlotte wasn’t unattainable before, she is now, embroiled in a gruelling campaign with key staff Maggie (June Diane Raphael) and Tom (Ravi Patel).
Fred quits his job rather than churn out articles for odious media mogul Parker Wembley (Andy Serkis). He drowns his sorrows with best friend Lance (O’Shea Jackson Jr) at a party in honour of the World Wildlife Fund, where he is unexpectedly reunited with Charlotte.
She needs an idealist to add verbal firepower to her speeches and asks Fred to join her campaign.
Any dreams Fred might harbour of wooing Charlotte are snuffed out by polling data, which suggests the first female president’s perfect paramour would be Canadian PM James Steward (Alexander Skarsgard).
“The public will never accept the two of you together,” Maggie informs Fred, “so neither will she.”
Long Shot hits the sweet spot. Theron and Rogen are impeccably cast, generating sparks with every lingering glance and zinging one-liner.