Worth the price of admission, or a waste of time?
Brian McKechnie and
Suzanne Ellis offer you their take on the latest movies hitting screens. Read their reviews every week, exclusively on
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AWAY WE GO
Rated R
Cast: John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph
Directed by: Sam Mendes
Official Site
IMDb
A young couple expecting their first child try to find "home" by travelling across the U.S. to see what feels right.
Brian's Take
**** out of 5 stars
I'm writing this review while listening to the Alexi Murdoch album
Time Without Consequence. Alexi scored
Away We Go and most of the soundtrack is songs from this album. Before seeing the film I had never heard of him and now I'm a fan. The music is mellow and calm, like the characters Burt and Verona (
The Office's John Krasinski and
Saturday Night Live's Maya Rudolph), and fits so well that the experience wouldn't have been so strong without it. This is not a review of the soundtrack, but, if you don't like Murdoch's music you will most likely not like
Away We Go.
The film begins with Verona and Burt finding out they're going to have baby. In their early 30's and not yet married, they live in a rundown trailer in Colorado and neither have good paying jobs (Burt sells insurance to insurance companies and Verona does anatomy illustrations). During a visit with Burt's parents Jerry and Gloria (Jeff Daniels and Catherine O'Hara), the retirees announce that they're relocating to Belgium (meaning they won't be around for the birth of their grandchild). With that, Burt and Verona decide there is nothing keeping them in Colorado and off they go searching for the perfect place to raise their baby.
Part road movie, part drama, part comedy -
Away We Go is equally funny as it is touching and will definitely hit a nerve with the thirtysomething set. As we go on the trip with them we meet Verona's outrageous former co-worker Lily (Allison Janney) and her husband Lowell (Jim Gaffigan). They live in Phoenix, drink a lot and insult their two children for fun. Burt's friend LN (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is a stroller-hating new age mommy with wild views on raising children. Their friends in Montreal, Tom (Chris Messina) and Munch (Melanie Lynskey) appear to be the most grounded, but with four adopted kids and none of their own there are underlying issues that start to surface.
Although every part is perfectly cast the film works overall because of the chemistry between Rudolph and Krasinski. Seeing them together on-screen I instantly forgot about the comedic roles on television that they are known for and believed they were a real couple. Rudolph, who was actually pregnant during the filming, also proved she has a lot more range than being the funny lady on
SNL (might help that she's married to director P.T. Anderson).
Where director Sam Mendes's other films
Revolutionary Road and
American Beauty took apart the value of marriage,
Away We Go focuses on how strong a relationship can be (married or not) even if the rest of your life is a mess. I credit Dave Eggers and his wife Vendela Vida for writing a brilliant script with main characters you can connect with and supporting ones you swear you've met before. The film is not for everyone (as proven by the low ratings most critics are giving it), but for the generation it was made by, and for, this will follow us for years to come.
Suzanne's Take
**** out of 5 stars
In 2008's
Revolutionary Road, director Sam Mendes subjected audiences to the painful disintegration of a once-happy relationship. A year later, Mendes is back with another relationship movie,
Away We Go, and this time though the subject matter is still heavy in places, the two main characters couldn't be more in love.
John Krasinski (
The Office) and Maya Rudolph (
Saturday Night Live) play Burt Farlander and Verona De Tessant, a thirtysomething couple from Colorado expecting their first child. When they find out the only relatives living close by, Burt's parents (Jeff Daniels and Catherine O'Hara), are moving to Belgium a month before the baby is due, they decide to pack up all their belongings and find the perfect place to settle down.
A hilarious and heartfelt road trip ensues as Burt and Verona travel by plane, train, and automobile to a number of spots where they have family and friends, among them Phoenix, Tucson, Montreal, and Miami.
The chemistry between Krasinski and Rudolph is a big part of what makes
Away We Go work. This is the first major movie role for both, and it's easy to buy them as a young couple going through the typical nervousness surrounding impending parenthood. They anchor the plot, which is essentially a series of vignettes as they move from place to place, and because they're so likeable they make even the slower points in the film watchable. The scenes where it's just the two of them confessing their fears to each other about whether they'll be good parents, whether their relationship will change, and how they're going to make everything work, struck me as completely genuine.
As good as the two leads are the supporting cast is phenomenal. From Daniels and O'Hara as Burt's self-absorbed parents, to Alison Janney as an insult-spewing former colleague of Verona's, to Maggie Gyllenhaal as a new age weirdo who delivers one of the film's funniest lines criticizing, of all things, baby strollers, the performances are uniformly excellent and kudos must be given to the casting director.
I also loved the music, courtesy singer-songwriter Alexi Murdoch - I hadn't heard of Murdoch before the film, but his gentle ballads (think Nick Drake, or Iron and Wine) are the perfect accompaniment to Burt and Verona's search for home.
Ultimately what makes or breaks a film like this though isn't the acting or the music, but the writing. Fortunately, the script, by Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida, is funny, true-to-life, and often deeply affecting.
Away We Go is a different type of film than we've come to expect from Sam Mendes, but that's a good thing. It's nice to see that while he can still do big budget fare with A-list stars, he can also put out a quirky indie gem. In fact if he decided he prefers making the latter, I'd have no problem with it.