You can’t be with the one you love; text messages and phone calls don’t make up for the loss of physical intimacy, and thousands of miles and multiple time zones often doom the relationship to failure. And it happens to movie stars and likable actors, too! Judd Apatow has shown us that relationship-comedies – which is a highfalutin way of saying romantic-comedies – can be a place for both thoughtful love stories and toilet-bowl humor. For all we know, they might be dating today. But this empty, immature romantic comedy ultimately feels as if it’s filled with all the hot air that separates New York and San Francisco , yet still manages to be a suffocating bore. The talent is certainly there. He’s an up-and-coming scout for a record label, she’s a 31-year-old Stanford University student interning at a newspaper, and soon these skittish motormouths are making all of Gotham their playground. But writer Geoff LaTulippe forgot to give them — and their surrounding friends and family — anything interesting or clever to say, other than sexual innuendos and quips about bodily functions. Thus, a predicament for the ages: Can their love survive a cross-country relationship? (Oh my.) Right out of the gate, director Nanette Burstein unleashes a full arsenal of rom-com cliches, including the obligatory falling-in-love montage. While it is true the newspaper industry has been in a brutal downward spiral since then, it seems a stretch to have a 35-year-old actress still playing someone trying to get her break as a reporter. Of course, that’s easier said than done.

One of the things I liked best about the film is how it is grounded in the grim economics of the newspaper and recording industries.

High airfares keep visits to once every four months, phone sex proves unsatisfying, they waste Skype -cam time fawning over baby panda videos, and there are only so many emoticons that can accompany texts saying “LUV U!” Meanwhile, Erin’s protective sister (an underused Christina Applegate ) worries this relationship will distract Erin, like an earlier one that resulted in her “derailed time line.” Nonetheless, the two crazy kids try to make it work despite the hurdles.

Barrymore plays Erin, a 31-year-old trying to get her “time line” back on track as an intern at the New York Sentinel after putting her career ambitions on hold to devote herself to a relationship that then crashed and burned. Though anything that begins with the squirrely Long making ridiculous loverman moves has nowhere to go but up, “Going the Distance” never gains speed. She’s earnest and sincere, yet appears to be waiting for someone to hand her a story, all fleshed out and ready to be typed up. “I’m 31,” she tells a co-worker, her tone rich with disgust as she heads out of the newsroom. The movie wants to be a serio-comic look at the often competing forces between work and love. The film has filled smaller roles with an assembly of notable comedians. Apparently, Day did research for his role at a hospital for the insane. He isn’t even afraid to make fun of this film’s target audience.

Perhaps this is where director Nanette Burstein’s background making such documentary films as 2008′s American Teen and 1999′s On the Ropes bleeds through. They inhabit hilarious scenes where the duo ruminate about nothing at all. Charlie Day contributes some hilarious bits of business as Garrett’s eavesdropping roommate, while Jim Gaffigan gets to deliver the funniest line in the movie, as Erin’s brother-in-law. Christina Applegate appears as Erin’s sister, a stuffy clean freak with a foul mouth.