Away We Go

This is an enjoyable watch. It won't change your life, but it won't waste 2 hours of your life, either. Pretty humorous with some actual laugh out loud moments. Sentimental enough without being tissues-required. So, yeah, an enjoyable watch.

Just six months after introducing us to one of the most unlikable and miserable movie couples viewers had ever seen in "Revolutionary Road", director Sam Mendes takes us on a little detour from his usual style/genre and allows us to meet one of the most likable on-screen pairings in recent years with "Away We Go".

TV's John Krasinski is the amiable goof-ball and insurance-futures' salesman Burt and SNL alum Maya Rudolph (in a quietly revelatory performance built on her gift of perfectly timed facial expressions) is his long-time girlfriend Verona who does illustrations for medical textbooks. Suddenly they find themselves pregnant and searching for a real home in this semi-autobiographical tale from scribes Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida. The pair, untethered to their current situations, decide to travel all over North America visiting family and friends so that they might find that perfect spot to lay down roots. Fans of Eggers' books should be pleased that the screenplay is imbued with his popular brand of sharp humor mixed with diluted sentimentality. The tale of these two thirty-somethings trying to do the right thing not only for themselves but for their daughter-to-be is filled with humor and warmth that allows us to relate to both the chaos around the characters and their desire to shield their baby from it.

Under Mendes surprisingly laid-back director's hand, the material and the performances rise above the clichés of the "she's having a baby!" sub-genre of dramedies while successfully interweaving elements of "discovering yourself on a road trip" indie flicks. Episodic and sometimes meandering in nature, the film's acts range from laugh-out-loud hilarious (including a scene-stealing Allison Janney making a bid for worst mother of the year in grand comedic style) to laughably absurd (witness Maggie Gyllenhaal as a self-righteous alterna-mom with an unfounded hatred towards strollers) to unexpectedly poignant (in an unexpected side-trip to Miami to help Burt's brother through a crisis). You won't find any screamingly awful delivery room scenes here, and while there is some semi-crude sexual humor, it's reality-based instead of raunchy and never overshadows the film's heart.

As with any Mendes' production, the cinematography (this time from Ellen Kuras) is artistically sound and serves as the perfect place for Mendes to paint his details. When the director uses a steady tracking shot moving through the passengers on a plane in mid-flight to focus in on the sun's hazy golden light coming through the windows highlighting the faces of our two stars sitting side-by-side, you can see Burt and Verona unified in a yearning pensive loneliness that makes you instantly root for their success. The promise of that scene is wonderfully fulfilled in the closing act (the details of which I will not divulge) which is probably the most hopeful denouement -- beautifully understated and with minimal dialogue -- you will ever find in a Mendes' film. As with anything in life, even in the most hopeful of atmospheres there is still some uncertainty, but if we're lucky, we'll see the talented Maya Rudolph in more lead roles and Sam Mendes will take time for more pleasant detours such as this.

I feel that the film makes a great connection between love and the experience of watching a movie. The end of this film is unbelievably right, given the nature of human experience and its relationship to the ideals that we construct in our heads. This movie captures the essence of both love and art together. We are bound to both love and art by a promise that we are pretty sure will be broken from time to time, just like the promises that the two people in the movie make to each other. But as human beings, we so much want the promise to come true that we will make it again and again. Whenever I watch a movie, I renew my own type of promise, one that I know will be broken, or at least will never live up to my own expectations. The characters in this movie go through the process of being broken by love (mostly through a sort of family and place Odyssey) in order to realize that the promises we make to each other can only be broken if we want them to be. We can love each other until we stop believing, and we can bring ourselves to watch a love story that keeps that same promise to the viewer. Sam Mendes has made the only romantic comedy he could ever make as a director: one that respects the viewer as well as the characters.

It's always great to see good directors develop and go in different directions. Just in the past few years, I've seen some of my favourite directors "evolve" and direct works that are quite uncharacteristic of their previously established styles, be it David Fincher with his emotional and romantic The Curious Case of Benjamin Button or Paul Thomas Anderson with his monumental character study There Will Be Blood. Sam Mendes, one of the most fascinating and talented directors working today, has so far delivered four very precise, calculated, ambitious and large-scale films, which is why it was interesting to discover that he of all directors was behind a quirky, lax, unhinged indie dramedy.

Actually, after watching the film, Mendes' style is quite noticeable. Although it's a very loose and small-scale human comedy, the film's aesthetic is still very formal, featuring symmetrical compositions and fluid camera movements. The lighting is top notch and in general it's an indie film that has a very high-quality look, clearly Mendes' stamp. Mendes is a very interesting director in that sense, because despite his being one of the most visually striking and prominent directors working today, with his last four films being among the most gorgeous-looking films in recent memory, his origins are on the stage, and that background is actually very prominent in this film.

Plot-wise, this film tells a story that we have all seen before – the road trip movie. Specifically, it's a film about unconfident people going out on the road in order to discover themselves. And yet, screenwriters (and novelists) Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida manage to craft unique and identifiable characters and through their journey create what is essentially a parable about relationships and self-discovery. The main couple is expertly played by John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph, who really play against type: Krasinski is known as the quiet and awkward Jim on The Office while in this film he is very confident, outgoing and funny; Rudolph, on the other hand, is known for her outrageous roles on Saturday Night Live while in this film she plays a more mellow and peaceful character. The story establishes a series of supporting characters who are also expertly played by a very impressive supporting cast; Maggie Gyllenhaal and Allison Janney particularly stand out as friends of Krasinski and Rudolph, respectively, who provide very opposite views about life and long-term relationships.

Ultimately, this is a fun, well-made, enjoyable, quirky little indie film; it's funny and charming and light-hearted while also delivering an interesting and thought-provoking parable about marriage, long-term relationships, life and the various approaches couples have to all those things. That said, I think that the film might even be too quirky and precious for its own good; these elements that often lead to such fantastic films as Little Miss Sunshine or Juno to get derided by the cynics don't often bother me, but in this film, I think that it's preciousness kind of takes away from the audience's connection with the characters. I can't quite put my finger on it, but all I know is that while the film is good, I felt a much stronger connection with the characters in another indie film from this year, (500) Days of Summer.

This film is about an expecting couple who travels around the country to try to find a perfect place to start their family.

"Away We Go" is slow and plain. The characters and the story are not developed enough to make me care about them. I almost feel that the couple is being irresponsible by travelling around according to their moment's fancy. I just cannot connect with their mindset at all, and hence I find the whole film a pointless and tedious bore. The only redeeming feature is Maggie Gyllenhaal's enchanting performance as a new age person, which consolidates her already strong CV.

"Away We Go" is such a disappointment, especially when compared to the strength of Sam Mendes' last effort, "Revolutionary Road".