Long Shot Review

Charlize Theron is the reason this works and every review says so. She plays Charlotte Field as a woman who is competent, exhausted and funnier than anyone expects, and the comic timing is a genuine surprise from an actor nobody had asked for it. Rogen underplays against her, and the pairing lands because the film gives him actual convictions to lose rather than making him a schlub with a crush. Jonathan Levine keeps the tone light without making the politics weightless, and the running argument about compromise gives the romance stakes.

The faults are shape and length. At over two hours the second act detours through a hostage crisis and a drug sequence that pad rather than build, the villains are cartoons, and the resolution requires a public scandal to evaporate on cue. June Diane Raphael and O'Shea Jackson Jr are both underused and both excellent when present. Critics generally note the film is more conventional than its rude surface suggests, following the beats of every romantic comedy it is nominally updating. What sets it apart is that both leads are written as adults who want things.