FILM: Away We Go

FILM: Away We Go

 

While being well aware of the lukewarm and even hostile reviews (see A.O. Scott’s take on it in the New York Times) that Away We Go has received, and even begrudgingly agreeing with some of the criticisms, I still couldn’t help but be totally charmed by the movie when I viewed it at Images Cinema in Williamstown, Mass. a couple of nights ago. The film may well have come and gone by now, but it’ll be worth renting down the road.

 

Unlike most films, totally forgettable by the time one’s head hits the pillow, Away We Go (a sort of more adult Juno) has continued to resonate for a few days now, and I suspect will continue to do so. It has a lot going for it, beginning with its two young stars, John Krasinski as the bearded Burt (most will know him as the lovable “Jim” in the long-running popular TV series, The Office), and the Saturday Night Live regular Maya Rudolph, who here is something of a revelation playing Burt’s six-months-pregnant girlfriend, Verona.

 

The setup is fairly simple: young couple about to have a baby finds out that his completely narcissistic parents (hers have both died nearly a decade ago) are moving to Europe just as their grandchild is about to be born. No longer having any ties to where they live, and having jobs (he sells insurance for insurance companies, and she is an illustrator of some kind) that are mobile, they set out to find the perfect place to live and raise their child, selecting places to visit where they know someone: her best friend in Phoenix; her sister in Tucson; his old friend in Madison, Wisconsin; their mutual friends in Montreal; and then finally, an unexpected visit to his brother in Miami, after his brother’s wife has unexpectedly left him alone with his brother’s young daughter.

 

The biggest complaint of the movie is that these thoughtful, sweet, and very much in love couple spend much of it sneering and judging others, chronicling their smug superiority to others, who are often horrifically trying to do what they are about to embark upon—namely starting a family, raising a child.

 

But I don’t really get this objection. Or, correct that, I get it, but I just think it misses the point. For me, it’s a brave thing for filmmakers such as Sam Mendes, with a script by Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida, to earnestly ask such questions, rather than to do so merely satirically. With fresh, open eyes, here’s a couple who is really questioning how most in this country go about raising children and how they might want to do it, well, a little differently.

 

Yes, they do it somewhat idealistically, still unaware of all the realities and compromises and pitfalls that await, but how else are they supposed to be going about it? They don’t buy that it’s built to fail, and say as much in the film. At least they’re going about it at all, moving beyond the naming and what color the nursery should be part of it.

 

There is the old saying that misery wants company. Away We Go skews that a bit to say: happiness doesn’t want misery, and certainly doesn’t want miserable company. By the end, there is something hopeful, and consistently thoughtful about this film. Its happy ending feels completely deserved and is even quietly moving. They find a place to live, but more than that, we have every reason to believe that, day by day by day, they will find (and build) a home. Lucky child, this one.

 

[July 23, 2009]