Mark Reviews Movies: LONG SHOT (2019)

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Review by Mark Dujsik | May 2, 2019

It's best, perhaps, to look at Long Shot, in which an elegant and intelligent politician preparing to run for President and a brash journalist-turned-speechwriter fall in love, as a kind of fantasy. One can buy that the journalist would fall for the politician, who's currently the Secretary of State and, by extension, the most powerful woman in the world. It's more than a bit difficult to understand why the politician would fall for the writer, but such are the ways of love.

The movies have been dealing in such romantic fantasies almost as long as they've been around, but it's tough to recall one that does such a good job switching up the typical gender roles of the romantic leads. We've seen plenty of women pine for some guy who is, in the character's mind, out of her league in some way, and we've even seen stories in which the man feels that way about a particular woman.

Usually, when the roles are reversed, the woman is held up on a kind of pedestal with a foundation that's entirely about how she looks. The man only stands a chance because he can recognize and accept some kind of vulnerability in her. She's beautiful but insecure or in pain about something, and the guy figures that out and sympathizes with her.

What sets Dan Sterling and Liz Hannah's screenplay apart from other examples of such a swap is that it never sacrifices the strength of its female lead as a way to lower her to the level of the male protagonist. Charlotte Field (Charlize Theron) begins the film as the most powerful woman in the world and at no point does that status change. She begins the story with a devotion to her job, because she knows it's what she wants out of life above everything else, and there's never a moment in which she sincerely thinks about quitting for the sake of love. She has doubts, to be sure, but they're more to do with the often hypocritical, seemingly ineffectual ways of politics—not because she really likes or maybe even loves some man.

The romance here, then, may be a form of fantasy, but we can buy it, because Charlotte is written and played as well as she is. We may not believe the general idea that she would fall for Fred Flarsky (Seth Rogen), an unemployed journalist who had a crush on her when she used to babysit him, but we believe Charlotte as an authentic character. If she ends up having feelings for Fred, there must be a good reason. Who are we to question the feelings of someone as strong, smart, and self-assured as Charlotte?

A lot of people in the film do, though. After an introduction that focuses on Fred's journalistic adventures (involving a neo-Nazi group) and the subsequent quitting of job (because the online outlet is being bought by an unscrupulous media mogul, played by an unrecognizable Andy Serkis), the rest of the story primarily follows Charlotte. She learns that the current President (played by Bob Odenkirk), an actor mostly known for playing the President on television, isn't planning to seek a second term. He'd rather do something more prestigious—namely, making the leap into movies.

That gag is like most of the political humor here: recognizable within a real-world context but broad enough that it doesn't feel like a direct dig on anyone or anything specific (although clips from the mogul's cable news network, with its dunderheaded male hosts, are almost impossible to separate from the reality of a certain cable network, with its unscrupulous mogul). There's one scene in which Fred gets into a political debate with his best friend Lance (O'Shea Jackson Jr.), and the specificity of real-world politics doesn't match the rest of the satire.

Anyway, let's get back to the story. After meeting Fred at party, Charlotte decides that he might be able to help her improve her public image by punching up speeches with a few jokes. He agrees, believing that she's as sincere about changing the world as she was in high school. While on a 20-country tour to promote a global environmental initiative, the two connect and, after a close call during a civil war, consummate their mutual attraction.

Sterling and Hannah give the two characters about equal time, but they're smart enough to recognize that Charlotte's role and her struggles to be a professional and public woman, who's held to unreasonable and double standards on a constant basis, are far more noteworthy than anything to do with Fred. He exists as a romantic admirer of almost puppy-dog-level loyalty, given the slightest bit of independence by the fact that he's willing to tell Charlotte when she takes a step or two too far from her ideals.

The framing of his character is rather daring in the way Fred has nothing to teach Charlotte about herself or what she can/should do with her job. He's supportive, although not blindly so, and at most, he exists as a perhaps too-stubborn baseline of honesty. If Fred teaches Charlotte anything, it's that doesn't need to become someone else or worry about what other people think in order to succeed and be admired (Sadly, that's also how we know this is a fantasy about the world or, at least, certain segments of it, but it's an optimistic one).

Rogen plays the role affably, and Theron makes a fully realized character out of Charlotte, instead of simply playing some idealized and idolized version of an intelligent, powerful, and beautiful woman. Long Shot gives us a sweet and funny romance, yes, but more importantly, it never sacrifices the influence, ambition, and integrity of its female lead in order to do so.

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