Long Shot review – Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen dazzle in unlikely rom-com
In past SXSW festivals, Seth Rogen has had audiences at Austin’s Paramount Theater in hysterics, debuting work-inprogress cuts of his salacious cartoon Sausage Party, then the wild comedybiopic The Disaster Artist. This year, he’s done it again with the world premiere of Long Shot, a romantic comedy spiked with political parody.
Directed by Jonathan Levine, who’s previously worked with Rogen in 2011’s 50/50, Long Shot stars Rogen as Fred Flarsky, an idealistic journalist who’s got skin in the game and party drugs in his windbreaker. He’s a fiery liberal, writing articles for a Brooklyn newspaper like “Why The Two-Party System Can Suck A Dick.” But none of this is why he catches the eye of one of the most powerful bachelorettes in the world.
Charlize Theron stars as Secretary of State Charlotte Field, who publicly projects a flawless elegance and charm. Privately, she is running herself ragged keeping up this image of perfection, doing phone interviews during her morning workout, taking micronaps with her wide eyes open, and practicing salutations to her boss, a president with an outsized ego, whose greatest pride is his success as a TV star. Sound familiar? Long Shot boldly studs a standard rom-com narrative (schlubby dude proves himself to his dream girl) with playful parodies of figures like Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Fox News CEO Rupert Murdoch, and Canadian Prime Minister/Internet Boyfriend Justin Trudeau. The script by Liz Hannah and Dan Sterling is essentially Knocked Up meets The Interview. It’s Rogen’s wheelhouse, and he’s dependably hilarious whether exploding into a bombastic yet awkward speech, getting up to stoner shenanigans, or pratfalling down a flight of stairs. What’s pleasantly surprising is how well he’s matched by Theron.
She’s done comedy before, including Seth MacFarlane’s spoof A Million Ways To Die In The West, Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody’s darkcomedy duo Young Adult and Tully, and a daffy guest run on Arrested Development that’s still among the show’s greatest highlights. But romantic comedy is a different beast. In a post-screening Q&A, Theron admitted to a packed house that she was nervous to take it on. She needn’t have been. Cool, confident, and sexy, Theron proves a pitch-perfect straight man to Rogen’s garrulous goofball, the Dean Martin to his Jerry Lewis. But Long Shot also exposes the lengths women in the public eye must go to seem cool and confident, which allows Theron to work in a keen vulnerability and feminist underpinning. She sparks with smirks, earned f-bombs, and a sequence where a stressed out Charlotte is high on party drugs and crusted in confetti, while navigating an international hostage crisis. Theron brings not only jokes
but also dimension to this dream girl role, winning hearts and laughs.
The cast is packed with outstandingly funny players. Bob Odenkirk brilliantly blusters as a “dumb-fuck president,” while Andy Serkis sinks his teeth into a mirthful Murdoch caricature. Comedy nerds will squeal over June Diane Raphael as Charlotte’s side-eying right-hand woman, or Paul Scheer, Kurt Braunohler, and Claudia O’Doherty as a Fox News-like talk show team. But the surprising standouts in the supporting cast are Alexander Skarsgård and O’Shea Jackson Jr. In a frumpy brown wig that seems like thrown shade, Skarsgård plays this world’s Trudeau, giving overeager smiles, a sweetly dorky vibe, and a Canadian-accented “sorry.” It’s a bit part, but he makes a meal out of it, somehow turning eating oysters into a deeply unsexy affair, and screeching out a laugh that is alarming and hysterical. Meanwhile, Jackson, who had previously impressed in Straight Outta Compton and Ingrid Goes West, proves a crackling comic actor as Flarsky’s best friend, a successful and suave Manhattanite with an unmatched skill for oneliners. Jackson has an electrifying verve and stellar comedic timing that manages to steal the spotlight from one of modern comedy’s biggest stars. If Rogen’s not got a vehicle for Jackson in the works right this second, he’s lost a step in his producing game.
With a giddy irreverence and a cavalcade of stupendous comedic performers, Long Shot is outrageously funny. The romance works because Rogen and Theron share an easy chemistry, yet the movie never loses sight of how out of his league Flarsky seems. It embraces the fantasy of such a romance, imagining a world where a gorgeous, intelligent, and powerful person who moves in circles with affluent, handsome, internationally beloved world leaders, would choose a broke stoner from Brooklyn instead. It’s like Notting Hill for the political set. There’s even a sequence where Boyz II Men pops up for an exhilarating bit of nostalgia and swoon. However, the finale doesn’t stick the landing, taking the romantic fantasy to one of political pipe dream. It makes for a happy ending, but while blithely undercutting the movie’s message of about sexist double standards and female empowerment. Despite this cringe-worthy stumble, Long Shot is a hilarious and heartwarming romantic-comedy that will have audiences howling in shock and awwww.
Long Shot is showing at SXSW and will be released on 3 May