The New Yorker – May 13, 2019

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Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen star in Jonathan Levine’s film.

THE CURRENT CINEMA

AFFAIRS OF STATE

“Long Shot” and “Meeting Gorbachev.”

BY ANTHONY LANE

ILLUSTRATION BY BEN KIRCHNER

B

ottom is taken aback, in “A Mid-

summer Night’s Dream,” when

Titania wakes and swoons at the sight

of him. “Thou art as wise as thou art

beautiful,” she says. He’s all ears. So what

if the lady is out of his league? As he

tells her, “Reason and love keep little

company together now-a-days.” The

coalescence of opposites—divine and

mortal, rich and poor, a fairy queen with

a half-assed fool—is one of the oldest

and most twistable of tales, and Holly-

wood’s new addition to the myth is

“Long Shot,” which advances the prop-

osition that Charlize Theron plus Seth

Rogen equals fireworks.

Theron plays Charlotte Field, who

is both wise and beautiful, and Rogen

plays Fred Flarsky, who is neither. She

is the U.S. Secretary of State, groomed

to the last follicle, and so industrious

that she sets her alarm for three-thir-

ty-five in the morning. He is an angry,

hairy schlub who writes for the Brook-

lyn Advocate and wears a teal wind-

breaker. With toggles. But—and it’s a

big but—she was once his babysitter,

when she was in high school, and so it

is that, decades later, they recognize each

other at a ritzy soirée. Charlotte is there

because she is Charlotte. She is tailed,

as ever, by her advisers, Maggie ( June

Diane Raphael) and Tom (Ravi Patel),

and by Agent M. (Tristan D. Lalla), her

wall-like security guy. Fred is there be-

cause he just lost his job; his best friend,

Lance (O’Shea Jackson, Jr.), has dragged

him along to take his mind off things.

“You kind of know Charlotte Field? It’s

kind of like knowing a mermaid,” Lance

says. He’s not wrong, and “Long Shot”

is best described as an unholy cocktail

of “The American President” (1995),

“There’s Something About Mary” (1998),

and “Splash” (1984).

Charlotte, who is so busy that she

takes naps standing up, like a horse in

its stall, reaches two major decisions.

One, she hires Fred as a speechwriter,

with special responsibility for zing. Two,

she decides to run for President, after

the incumbent, a muttonhead named

Chambers (Bob Odenkirk), confides

to her that he will not be seeking a sec-

ond term. (In a nice example of reverse

Reaganism, he sees the Presidency as a

springboard for a more serious career as

a movie star.) The result is that Fred and

Charlotte get to hang out—on planes,

in foreign hot spots, and, at one point,

under conditions of genuine peril. And

we all know what happens under those.

There comes a click, in romantic mov-

ies, when the link between the central

couple is ratcheted up from the fortu-

itous to the intimate. Whether we ac-

cept that shift, and treat it as plausible,

is entirely a matter for the actors; if Grace

Kelly, turning at the door of her room,

in “To Catch a Thief ” (1955), had be-

stowed an unheralded kiss on the lips of

anyone but Cary Grant, the audience

would have scoffed. The director of “Long

Shot,” Jonathan Levine, and the screen-

writers, Liz Hannah and Dan Sterling,

must be nervous about the click, because

they keep reminding us how wacky and

miraculous this whole passion thing can

be. After spending a night with Char-

lotte, Fred asks Agent M., who misses

nothing, “Could you not tell anybody

about this?” To which M. responds, “They

wouldn’t believe me anyway.”

The filmmakers needn’t fret too much,

since “Long Shot” actually works. True,

its effect is already fading by the time

you head for the exits, crunching through

dropped popcorn as if through fallen

leaves, but while the movie lasts you buy

into its blend of chemistry and calcula-

tion. Theron and Rogen spar with ease,

not least because their characters share

a full set of pop-cultural references, thus

obeying the first commandment of mod-

ern love: when two souls jump for joy

at the mention of Boyz II Men, two

hearts shall beat as one. Fred’s editor at

the Advocate cautions him that he can

be “a little too much,” and the same goes

for Rogen, who, as usual, both appeals

and aggravates with his froggy, loud-

mouthed shtick. But fear not: the her-

oine is here to calm him down.

Clearly, Theron can turn her hand to

any genre. Comedy becomes her, per-

haps because—not although—she looks

so laughably glamorous. (Levine wants

to have it both ways: we get satirical snip-

pets of Fox-like TV presenters, who ob-

sess over Charlotte’s appearance, barely

stanching their drool, but then the cam-

era does feast on her, without respite.)

Also, as a spiritual heir of Barbara Stan-

wyck, Theron is aware that, when occa-

sion demands, she needs to be one of the

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