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Friday
12Jun2009

Movie Review - 'Away We Go'

DateFriday, June 12, 2009 at 12:44AM
Away We Go

Starring John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph, and Maggie Gyllenhaal
Directed by Sam Mendes
Rated R

awaywegoposter.jpg There's a terrific moment in Sam Mendes' Away We Go that doesn't hit you until later. You'll have to pardon my French, because it only works best with the actual quote. Burt Farlander (John Krasinski from The Office) and Verona De Tessant (Saturday Night Live vet Maya Rudolph) are in their mid-30s, unmarried, living in a shack with a cardboard window, and about to have their first baby.

Reflecting on their state of affairs, Verona asks, in all earnestness, "Are we fuck-ups?" Its timing is positioned as a joke to us, but we're only observers.

Verona is serious, though; she's about to bring a baby into this world and her self-doubt is probably very common. Burt is unconvincing when he assures her that they're normal. But we don't respond to how normal Burt, Verona, and their problems are until we meet the people they know the best.

It does you no good to walk you through those encounters here, but the design is that Burt and Verona travel the country looking for the best place to start their family, so they visit friends and family in Phoenix, Tucson, Madison, Montreal, and Miami. Writers Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida craft a terrific travelogue - usually a stale blueprint for a movie - and create a passle of memorable comedic characters that line the way.

Mendes deserves a heap of credit for trusting some of the film's funnier exchanges to Alison Janney and Maggie Gyllenhaal, neither of whom are comic actors by trade, the way Rudolph and Krasinski are. But it works both within the individual moments and under the bigger umbrella.

Still, the heart of Away We Go is the touching relationship between Burt and Verona. I think I learned more about Maya Rudolph as an actor than I did Krasinski. She has legitimate talent, and not the kind of SNL talent that so many alumni of that proving ground have tried to use when beginning film careers. She can really act the way few members of the storied Not Ready for Prime Time Players can.

This is something of a change for director Sam Mendes, as well. He won the Oscar for American Beauty and has stayed with prestige movies ever since. Away We Go really showcases his taste and touch with storytelling the way American Beauty did and the way the shrill Revolutionary Road did not.

This movie certainly isn't perfect, but it moves along really well and there are surprisingly big and plentiful laughs.

AuthorColin Boyd | | in , | Print ArticlePrint Article | | CommentPost a Comment |

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