Starring Seth Rogen. Rated 14A

Is Long Shot a good movie? Not really. But it is a good movie for this moment. The film’s winning mix of idealism, pragmatism, sexy banter, and gross-out comedy—think Veep, as directed by the Farrelly brothers—could actually encourage youthful engagement in the political process.

Among other small ironies, South African–born Charlize Theron plays Charlotte Field, a U.S. secretary of state considering a run for the top job. And Vancouver’s Seth Rogan is Fred Flarsky, a radical journalist hired to punch up Field’s speeches. Turns out she used to baby-sit him when they were growing up in D.C.

That’s just one of the many implausibles that require disbelief suspension in a tale directed by 50/50’s Jonathan Levine and written by Liz Hannah (The Post) and Dan Sterling (The Office, Girls, and The Daily Show). The jokes land more squarely than do the politics, and the focus remains more on Fred, who follows the less crucial path.

The story does make it clear that any woman has to be 10 times sharper, more articulate, and better looking than her male counterpart in order to succeed. The endlessly versatile Theron makes that look easy, especially when up against Bob Odenkirk as a doofus ex-TV-star president. But Fred continues to wear pre-adolescent attire and bring his loud, uncompromising politics to state functions—something that would have been confronted by more than Charlotte’s two long-suffering assistants (Ravi Patel and June Diane Raphael) in this tale, a tad underpopulated at just over two hours.

Also aboard is Sweden’s Alexander Skarsgård, as an unmarried Canadian PM whom everyone deems “just right” for Charlotte, and O’Shea Jackson Jr. (son of Ice Cube), as Fred’s best pal. Oddly for lifelong buddies, race and politics have never been discussed, apparently. And it’s hard to reconcile Charlotte’s clearly Democratic environmental agenda with her seemingly Republican president.

Anyway, Long Shot is less about improbable White House bedfellows than about bearded hipsters who dare to bat well out of their league—with nudges from a ’90s-nostalgia soundtrack and the odd hit of “molly”. Did I mention that this was mostly shot in Montreal?