Friday, October 8, 2010

Going the distance: In love, one travels all the possible extra miles


This Valentine's day of 2010, I decided to watch 'Valentine's day'. Swiped my card online for two, without a date in mind and to my very pleasant surprise PVR decided to make me that privileged credit card holder who got a ticket free. I smiled ear to ear. I was very pleasantly surprised. I thought the stars were working in my favor so I decided to call on someone random and hook up for a date. Date-disaster would be an extreme and mean description; however I wish I could be more diplomatic about it. Another day would have been fine, but on Valentine's day, c'mon, St. Valentine's would be so ashamed of me! Although, another very pleasant surprise was the movie itself. Multiple stories woven into one seamless beautiful fabric. I loved the movie. Great one time watch. However, I said to myself "This cant be the my valentine's day. Its one story to be alone, but another to inflict a wrong date onto yourself". So there, I swiped the card again for a late night show; ticket for two, and this time I decided to take a friend along. And you guessed it right, I got the second ticket free, this time too. Honestly! So, in summary, in spite of an ok date, and a great-one-time-movie watch what made me happy for that day were the two free tickets. I felt special about being chosen by the cosmos for two free tickets. Simple things like these that pleasantly surprise us quite often come as infringement benefits in our day to day agenda activities.

Last saturday on 2/10, Gandhi Jayanti, I experienced the same thing after having watched Drew Barrymore and Justin Long in "Going the distance". And if you haven't experienced the "pleasant surprises" of life and are a movie buff, I recommend this movie one-100%. It will give you that pleasant-surprise-joy. I had no POA and had already watched Anjaana Anjaani the day before. So V, a dear friend of mine, and I decided to catch up at Phoenix mills, browse around and catch this movie. My mum liked Drew Barrymore, when I took her to see Charlie's Angels part II. She didn't care about hot Madison Lee or anybody else, however after the movie she told me ....."Ae mala ti hi awadli, chaan diste" translates into - "I liked Drew Barrymore, she is beautiful". However, though I like Drew, I wouldn't go for a movie just to watch her. Justin Long would be extremely far-fetched; the only place I remember him from is from the movie"*something* Creepers". So without expectations, we got seated in the movie stalls to spend time with the movies. 

Do yourself a favor and dont miss this brilliant piece of work. A very realistic, simple, well crafted, very well directed heartwarming story of love-in-today's-date. This is one of those movies where script does the wonders, and the start cast brings the story to life. You don't go here to appreciate a Julia's or Leonardo's performance, however, you end up loving the chemistry of Erin and Garret played by Drew and Justin respectively. It may not come equipped with the marketing gimmicks to entice you into a ticket purchase, and is very simple and ordinary at face value; but it is going to make you feel so damn good at the end of it. Its a four starrer all the way, and there is not one instance you can pick and criticize. Very recently, I believe UDAAN was another such nice piece of work.

So this a story about Erin (ERL) and Garret. Erin is a writer and completing her graduation from Stanford, however possibly running a decade behind where career is concerned. Garret is much younger and the last time he cried over breakup with a girl was as a child. Obviously none of the girls stuck around, because he was lesser involved in each of them. Then as cosmic connection would have it, both of them meet over a Centipede game. Now, trust me on one thing, when it comes to love stories of real or reel life, cosmos sometimes has a major role to play. Its inevitable destiny and I believe in it. The aim is to bring two people together.

So the not-so-involved Garret meets the charming and carefree Erin (soon going to be journalist) over a Centipede game followed by beer. This is followed by "Erin, welcome to my bedroom" and Erin appears pseudo-shocked when Garret's roommate plays a romantic background score to spice up the late evening. There's then a 3-way. I mean, conversation followed by a you-know-what-follows in the late-evening now, don't you? Then the story begins and you will experience the warmth and love of a fine picturization. This will last for those couple of hours followed by rest of that day. I shall attempt to give you a brief.

Instead of an ugly quite exit the next morning, E and G decide to catch up on breakfast. G expresses his interest to see more of her and she obliges with her phone number; making it perfectly clear that she was going to be around for six months after which she is headed back to school in Stanford. Six months fling by in a perfect honeymoon period as they find themselves in awkwardly parting ways at the New York airport. They believe that wasn't a good ending and decide to give long distance relationship a try. Erin moves back to west coast with her sister and Garret stays in New York where his work is with the music industry. Then, the surrounding people of friends and family intrude on the long-distance relationship status. "Is it exclusive?" This surrounding friends and family are some of the funniest people you will know in the movie. They are awesome and fun. Remember Amy, who plays Rachel's sister in friends; well she plays Erin's sister here. You will encounter these individual conversations lead to random blowjobs and pussy-licking, however, if you keep speech etiquette out; you are going to be on one roller coaster laughter. 

The relationship gets the "exclusive" label on verbal phone agreement as has been in practice. It progresses to depict the hardships of long-distance, where you are not always equipped to meet the person you love for reasons of monetary limitations or move to either location on account of lack of job opportunities given the economic curses.

Love doesn't keep knocking at your door. Its not the daily vegetables that you pick up at some supermarket or vendor on the road. Getting someone to have sex with you is a lot easier than to meet the person who you would like to take out for a morning breakfast, share your most favorite movies, the bands you have loved and the future ones you would like to support. And in response, have someone who understands every bit of what you say or how you feel about things. That connect happens very once-in-a-while and cosmos plays a role in bringing them together the first time. The rest is for individual entities to work on. The chemistry of these two actors is so natural that you wouldn't imagine them finding somebody else in their latter lives with such synchronized rhythm. The two of them  probably understand this and therefore invest all their heart to make it work as far as they can. That's why you will love this movie.

Circumstances change, hard work sometimes becomes too hard and doesn't pay off. They make decisions that will keep them happy and satisfied in the long run and they convince us of that. They convince us of the love they have and that's good performance for a movie. 
Apart from the chemistry, the movie also educates you on something called as "dry-humping". It brings with it loads of laughter and brings the "statue" game back into fashion. "Maya, Statue!" is the funniest line you will hear in the movie. 

I was very pleasantly surprised with this one. I was happy at the end of it and left behind with an impression that "when it comes it to love, people travel all the possible extra miles."

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