Away We Go

Directed by Sam Mendes

Written by Dave Eggers & Vendela Vida             

Release date (wide): June 19, 2009

FS Verdict: Highly recommend!

It always seems to come when you least expect it.

Weeks pass by.  Birthdays are celebrated.  The family visits; friends stop by.   Commute back and forth to work.  Months pass by.  Marriage is celebrated. Babies are born.  Parents have date night. Years pass by.

Life happens.

Suddenly there is a halt in the never ending treadmill of our daily being and a moment of question—a moment of clarity happens.  Why do I live in this city? What happened to my dreams? Have I been left behind in the game of life?

Away We Go is a quest into the hearts and minds of this generations 30-somethings and successfully reaches at the truth.

British director Sam Mendes has a fascination with the so-called “American Dream” which is evident within his films American Beauty and Revolutionary Road. This time instead of a cynical view of suburia and relationships, his film focuses on the quirkiness of everyday life and all that we choose (or not) choose to surround us.  Famed novelist Dave Eggers has brilliantly crafted his first film script (his next is Where The Wild Things Are) and caught the essence of finding ones way in life.

Our two main characters are something we rarely see in film: a couple seemingly truly in love with each other.  Burt (John Krasinski) and Verona (Maya Rudolph) finally come into their own as actors with performances so touching it would be difficult envisioning anyone else playing these characters.  The journey begins when the 6 month pregnant couple learns that their only tie to the city they live in will be cut. Burt’s parents are moving to Antwerp for 2 years — 1 month before the baby is born. Verona’s parents have both passed away.  Where do they want to raise their baby? What friends/family do they want to raise the baby near? Away they go…

Reviews are starting to trickle in for this film and many of them are obviously written by critics who simply do not understand the generation presented to them. They mistake the couple in love as being “smug” instead of sweet.  They also mistake the character observations as “judgemental”.  You as the viewer can judge this for yourself.  But we adamently disagree with that stance.

There’s a great quote in the film that really sums up the generation as a whole. In a haunting scene in Montreal, Chris Messina’s character Tom says to Burt, “I wonder if we’re selfish. I wonder if we wait and wait to have kids, and then we’re surprised when babies aren’t so easy to make anymore. In the meantime, there are a minimum of a million 14-year-olds who just got pregnant without even trying.” Thirtysomethings have so many possibilities and options today, that many are statistically starting families later than any other generation before them.  They can travel freely. They can become the next American Idol.  They can control their own destiny…seemingly.  All of those fears and hesitation are summed up beautifully and comically in this film.

Burt and Verona visit the whole spectrum of families, young and old. In reuniting with these families across the country, they slowly are able to gather what they want (and don’t want) in their own pending family.  Sam Mendes subtly shoots the American landscape in all of its beauty.  From the Desert to the Beach, we get an insider look at the vast territory we can live in…if we so choose.  Away We Go will stay with you long after you leave the theater.

We highly recommend it.

Corey @ FS

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