Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Lovely and lithe, a deft comedy infiltrated by seriousness, Away We Go is a delightful quirk of a film, an antidote for the Hollywood blockbuster summertime blues. It’s a road movie, yes, but it’s not your father’s (or mother’s) road movie: Call it your parents-to-be road movie, in which a threesome—including the unseen occupant of a very pregnant belly—tool around American cities, plus Montreal, in search of a future home. We understand that this won’t be a typical romantic comedy from our first encounter with the protagonists (TV’s Maya Rudolph and John Krasinski), noticing a new flavor during oral sex. Sure enough, the happy couple is in a family way, which sets up a narrative parade of anticipation, both light and dark, as they run into a variety of dysfunctional and otherwise dubious relatives throughout their travels.
For all its fresh twists and issues, Away We Go behaves like most road movies, blending the built-in variety of scenery, a sense of rhythmic momentum, and a soul-search subplot. In this case, the genre also allows for a series of sketch comedy situations, a natural context for SNL’s Rudolph (although she plays the straight woman here). Among the bringers of dry hilarity are the gaudy, anti-PC mom-in-law (Allison Janney), the New Age evil witch (Maggie Gyllenhaal), and the smug escapist yuppie (Jeff Daniels). And musically, the story is given a beautiful and fittingly bittersweet flavoring with tunes by affecting moodster singer/songwriter Alex Murdoch.
Pre-domesticating angst shouldn’t come as a surprise from the filmic canon of director Sam Mendes, the man behind artful suburban horror films American Beauty and Revolutionary Road. But he’s clearly dealing with more hopeful turf this time around, banking on the implicit—and growing—source of cautious optimism represented by a baby in the oven. Structurally, too, the film, with a tasty script by Dave Eggers (the author’s first screen shot) and Vendela Vida, amounts to a long and winding road home.
At its root, Away We Go is a rare and intriguing film in which the driving force is an unseen character, still enjoying the amniotic anonymity of the womb, but already changing its parents’ lives.
For showtimes, check the Independent's movie listings, here.