Refreshing ‘Long Shot’ makes Rogen, Theron a winning pair

The rom-com has officially been revived, and with new releases hitting theaters and flooding Netflix, the best ones always seem to turn out to be a twist on the genre. “Long Shot,” starring Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen, puts the rom into the com of Machiavellian, Washington, D.C., political machinations. It’s “Veep,” but less absurdly acid-tongued, and a lot more swoony. Still, the incisive cultural and political commentary cuts deep, and Theron and Rogen turn out to be a winning pair.

Written by Dan Sterling and Liz Hannah, the film follows a journalist for a Brooklyn alt weekly, Fred Flarsky (Rogen), who reconnects with his middle school babysitter, Charlotte Field (Theron), who has become the youngest secretary of state ever — and an eligible, workaholic bachelorette. She taps the newly unemployed Fred to punch up her speeches as she embarks on a worldwide tour touting a new environmental initiative and embellishing her public image for a future presidential run. The unlikeliest — or perhaps likeliest, considering the context — of flings blossoms along the way.

There is of course, pop nostalgia, and a whole lot of drug humor, because, well, Seth Rogen, but it’s a treat to see him back as the unlikely romantic lead, and to see the softer side of Theron, even as she remains in a powerful role. Sterling and Hannah put this particular gender dynamic — with a powerful female politician and a male “Marilyn” (as Fred dubs himself) — to work, upending regressive beliefs about politicians and sex. Why should sex be shameful? Politicians are people, too. The film also carefully threads the needle on the ways in which Charlotte’s gender informs her work (and her compromises), and unpacks the sexist beliefs that permeate society and systems of power. It’s also refreshing that “Long Shot” places monied special interests and biased media conglomerates squarely in its sights, and it does not hold back.