Long Shot (2019 film)

U.S. Secretary of State Charlotte Field learns from President Chambers, a former television actor, that he does not plan on running for a second term as he is trying to break into the movie industry. Seeing an opportunity, she convinces him to endorse her as a potential presidential candidate.

Meanwhile, New York City journalist Fred Flarsky learns that the newspaper he works for has been bought by Parker Wembley, a wealthy media mogul whose ethics directly oppose Fred's. Furious, he promptly quits but cannot find another job. Depressed, he turns to his more successful best friend Lance, who takes him to a charity fundraising event where Boyz II Men happened to be playing. Coincidentally, Charlotte is also in attendance. She and Fred recognize each other, as she was his babysitter and secret crush when they were younger. While they catch up, Wembley interrupts them to plan a meeting with Charlotte, leading Fred to condemn Wembley's actions and beliefs very loudly before leaving, falling down a set of stairs and embarrassing himself in the process.

Upon reading some of Fred's columns, Charlotte decides to hire him to write her speeches over the protests of her chief of staff, Maggie. Despite voicing skepticism of her ethics, Fred takes the job. At a world leaders summit, Charlotte is forced to revise a speech involving a planned environmental revision to appease some of her constituents. When Fred objects and calls her out on abandoning her morals, she changes her mind and the speech is a success.

As the two continue to spend time together under the pretext of Fred learning more about Charlotte for his writing, they start to get close. Finally, after surviving a revolution in Manila, they begin a relationship together. Upon finding out, Maggie tries to warn both that the public will never accept them as a couple. When Chambers orders Charlotte to remove plans to preserve the trees, as some friends of his asked, she lets off steam with Fred by getting high on ecstasy. A hostage crisis occurs soon after and, despite still being high, Charlotte manages to talk the captors down and free the hostage.

Even though the incident increases Charlotte's approval rating, Chambers is livid when she chooses to ignore his orders and call him out. He confronts her in his office alongside Wembley, who has a vested interest in removing the trees as part of his plan. The two blackmail her with a hacked video from Fred's webcam. The hacked video depicts Fred discussing his and Charlotte's relationship and Fred further masturbating to a video of one of her speeches, the hacked video culminating in Fred ejaculating on his own face. Charlotte shows Fred the hacked video and informs him that she has agreed to the ultimatum, and that she wants to introduce him and their relationship publicly once his image is cleaned up. Disappointed and unwilling to change, he refuses and they break up.

Back in New York, Fred talks with Lance, who tells him that he has been too stubborn with his principles and refusal to consider other people's needs and opinions. During her announcement to run for president in 2020, Charlotte changes her mind and opts for her original plan, also revealing the blackmail from Wembley and Chambers and describing the content of the video before its release. Fred searches for Charlotte and finds her waiting at his apartment. They admit that they love each other, and meet the press outside where Charlotte introduces Fred as her boyfriend, with the public surprisingly being supportive of them. In 2021, the couple marry and Charlotte is sworn in as the first female president with Fred as "First Mister", him having taken her last name.

The film had its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 9, 2019.[15] Originally slated to be released on February 8, 2019,[16] following highly positive test screenings it was pushed back to June 7, 2019, in order to be positioned as a summer tentpole.[17] It was then moved up to its eventual date of May 3, 2019.[18]

While promoting the movie in France on the hit TV show Touche pas à mon poste!, Charlize Theron was shocked when the host Cyril Hanouna gave a friendly kiss to the female translator, not knowing that Hanouna kisses all his staff and collaborators, both men and women, on camera on a daily basis and that kissing is not frowned upon in France as it is in the US. The event briefly turned viral in France, where Hanouna is a household name. The vast majority of viewers defended Hanouna, as well as the cast of the show who felt Theron had totally misinterpreted his intentions. A few days later, the translator also said that she did not feel the kiss was inappropriate.[19] For falsely accusing him of assault and attracting negative press to his show, Hanouna later swore never to invite Theron again.[20]

• Long Shot at IMDb