Justin Long and Drew Barrymore - a real life couple - paired in recent romcom Going the Distance. While showcasing sparkling dialog, the plot was also recognizably real. Living on different coasts from each other, couple Garret and Erin try to stay in touch, using every modern social networking convenience known to man.
I found it interesting that the movie made a point of having scenes showing so many useful Internet applications.
Naturally, there were late night land line phone calls (remember when Harry met Sally and they didn't even have cell phones to chat at night with? Just bedside analog phones - how quaint!).
Of course, Erin and Garret talk several times a day on their cell phones.
They also text each other. Apparently constantly. They update each other on their slices of life - at the bar, while walking around town, while playing ball with the guys...and while it might seem like the information shared is trite, it does provide a sense of immediacy and intimacy. In my long distance relationships of the past, texting would have been a wonderful boon.
They use Facebook and Twitter to see each other's updates. They spend much of their work time instant messaging. IMing is a fantastic bridge between a phone call and a text massage - it's great for dialoging.
One of the most interesting things the couple does is on Christmas day. Since the tickets were too expensive for flights - and the film actually shows Garret looking at ticket prices on an Orbitz website equivalent - they two snail mail each other their gifts. And they open them while watching each other via computer video cam. It's quite clever and very realistic. I can see modern long distance couples doing this.
People who miss each other have always looked for better ways to feel closer. People used to write long multi-page letters, or send each other cassette tapes that they used to record their thoughts. IM and texting gives a more daily sense of each other with less time lag.
In Going the Distance you really feel the pain of these two people, separated by space and time. Does the benefit of having modern apps and devices make up for spending months apart?
In a nutshell, no. We humans still like real face to face, physical contact. I think that our current technologies were a large help for Erin and Garret, since neither succumbed to local (and willing) human temptation. They were able to squeeze just enough from their web and cell devices to hang in there with each other, long enough to figure out how to make their relationship work.
I do recommend seeing this movie. Here is a link to samples of the soundtrack songs at Amazon, if you're a fan:
