On New Year's Eve that year, they video call each other. Martin is looking after his daughter, Maureen is enjoying herself at a New Year's party, and J.J. and Jess are in a happy relationship. Brosnan has stated that TV presenter Richard Madeley was an inspiration to him in playing the role. While reading the script for the film in the "Colombe D'Or" restaurant in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Brosnan stated that he saw Madeley and his wife Judy Finnigan and later said "I think it's his sheer ebullience and enthusiasm. You have to be almost shamanic to do it, really, and really believe in yourself. And it's a thin line between being affable and being really annoying. So it takes a brave soul, really." The film premiered at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival on 10 February 2014. "A Long Way Down" received negative reviews from critics. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 22%, based on 50 reviews, with an average score of 4.2/10. The site's consensus reads, "Tonally jumbled and conceptually ill-advised, "A Long Way Down" bungles its source material and wastes a talented cast.". At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 34, based on 21 reviews, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". In 2015, the film won a Voice Award from the American Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.