Mr. Wrong

TRANSIT (B+) - Christian Petzold cooks up another slow-burning drama with a sharp ending in this tale of refugees fleeing fascist rule during an undefined era (the story is based on a 1942 novel). Franz Rogowski stars as Georg, the displaced person who inadvertently obtains the papers of a German writer who died in Paris. Georg heads to Marseilles, where he eventually meets up with the writer's estranged wife, Marie (Paula Beer, "Frantz," "Never Look Away").

Petzold takes his time digging into Georg's melancholia as a man without a home and -- after assuming the identity of the dead writer as a means of escape -- without a true identity. Georg's attraction to Marie is complicated by her belief that her husband may yet still return to reconcile and escape with her.

Petzold has beguiled before with the "complicated and a bit corny" "Phoenix," and "Barbara" (both with Nina Hoss), and his languid period pieces never quite come together like they should, but they can be hard to shake. Here, Rogowski is a compelling sad sack, and Beer, as always, cuts a beguiling figure. Petzold also has a patented twist up his sleeve for the ending. This one feels light and heavy at the same time.

LONG SHOT (C) - In which Seth Rogen seduces Charlize Theron. What do you expect?

Rogen stars as Fred Flarsky (first red flag: a dorky character name from the '50s), an out-of-work investigative blogger who happens to run across his old baby-sitter, Charlotte Field (Theron), the U.S. secretary of state about to launch her bid to succeed a clownish TV star occupying the White House (Bob Odenkirk). She improbably invites him to be her speechwriter and, eventually, her lover. Gasp!

He struggles to keep his integrity, and she must fight to stay pure and to resist the big-money influences that include -- of all people! -- the nasty billionaire homunculus who downsized Fred, as well as the compromised president. High-jinks ensue.

Rogen and Theron are really good, as expected, and they actually have some chemistry. The cutesy script (by Dan Sterling and Liz Hannah) peels off a few zing-o one-liners and wacky situations. (But do we really need the obligatory uptight-authority-figure getting-high-at-a-rave scene?) Some of the supporting cast helps here (June Diane Raphael and Ravi Patel are funny as the secretary's key staffers, and Lisa Kudrow is gold in a cameo as the campaign's incredibly candid pollster), but others flop badly, like Paul Scheer and Kurt Braunohler as offensive Fox-type TV hosts who are only offensive, not funny.

The real problem here is that, as hip as Sterling and Hannah and Rogen and Theron might hold themselves out to be, this is a painfully conventional romantic comedy. Rogen even gets his very own Black Best Friend (a bland O'Shea Jackson). As meta as they may think they are getting here, the production is wrapped in cliched rom-com formula, and never manages to rise above it or attain ironic detachment. And that leaves us with an intermittently funny -- and a full two-hour -- throwaway genre exercise.