OK film fans, the least anticipated day of the week, Monday, has come and just about gone, but before it fades into the background I want to share my thoughts on a film I just finished watching. As you may have noticed recently I've been leaning heavily on the indie films for my blog and this is no mere coincidence. Hollywood is constantly churning out mindless dreck, so much so that it sometimes makes it hard to find films of value that can be both entertaining and stimulate your mind. This is never truer than in the months between Oscar season and the start of the summer blockbusters from February through May. I encourage you during this time shun the theaters and look at DVD releases from the prior year; you'll never know when a little gem will pop up and make your day.
Away We Go came out in June of 2009 the same week of The Hangover. It was met with decidedly mixed reviews and lasted only 11 weeks in the theaters. I saw the commercials and read some of the reviews when it came out, decided it was a rental and went to see its competition instead. In doing so I passed over steak and Scotch with friends at Morton's for a burger and a coke in a drive thru. Both of those will get the job done, but only one will you remember years later.
Burt (The Office's John Krasinski) and Verona (an amazing performance by Maya Rudolph) are well educated, self-employed, thirty-something's who could easily be living in the suburbs but seem stuck in a post college alternative lifestyle rut. When Verona becomes pregnant they realize it's time to put down roots but aren't sure where or how they should settle down. Since Verona's parents are deceased they had planned on leaning on Burt's folks, for whom they had moved to be closer to even before the pregnancy. However, Burt's parents have decided to move to Antwerp a month before their grandchild is expected to be born and are completely wrapped up in their own lives.
Since the couple is unencumbered they begin a road trip of sorts where, rather than meeting strangers on their journey they visit friends in different cities across the nation in search of a place to settle. Each visit takes on its own pace, measured by the couples in various states of happiness and parenthood. The first stop is Phoenix with Verona's former boss Lily (Allison Janney). She's a wildly inappropriate, liquored up and completely oblivious to the distance her husband and kids have created as a buffer to her cruelty. After a quick stop to visit Verona's sister, their next visit in Madison is with a childhood friend of Burt's, Ellen (now LN) who's a college professor that puts Boulderite New Age tree huggers to shame with her antics. Burt bites his tongue while she espouses feminist alternative child raising theories but finally loses his calm when her flaky husband mocks his career resulting in one the funniest scenes in the film. You'll have second thoughts every time you see a kid in a stroller.
From there they visit college friends Tom and Munch in Montreal who seem to have created a perfect life. They have a wonderful Brownstone filled with adopted children of different ages and ethnicity. Their house is filled with love and laughter. In Burt's conversation with Tom we discover the couple's hearts are breaking as Munch deals with her most recent miscarriage, the latest in a series of attempts to have their own children. Their final stop is an emergency visit to Burt's brother whose wife has abruptly abandoned him and their young daughter. This final visit shakes Burt's confidence and leads to a beautiful conversation between the couple where they reaffirm their love with each other and their unborn child. When they finally realize where they need to go to raise their daughter it feels as right to us as it does to them.
Verona and Burt's relationship is perhaps a bit idyllic but they are not an uncommon or unbelievable couple. The sentiments in the film are heartfelt, honest and touching in a way few films capture. Director Sam Mendes has a way with family dynamics and you don't have to look much further than the married screenwriters to find the wellspring of Burt and Verona. Dave Eggers and his wife Vendela Vida, thirty-something authors and essayist with two kids, are even more amazing than the couple at the center of the film. As always, if a film has a good tone you can be sure the soundtrack is good as well. With its folksy, mellow vibe it's a keeper and now part of my collection.
It seems that most of the reviewers who panned the film focused on the couple's so-called sense of superiority, that they are constantly looking down on other couples and judging them. The bottom line is they are. That's the point. Burt and Verona is the couple we admire, envy and hate all at the same time because they are emphatically in love. They remind us what happens when two people are the perfect complement for each other. The charm here is that despite their wonderful relationship, there are still lessons to be learned from each couple they encounter.
It's not a perfect film, there are scenes that don't completely work and some characters are pretty one dimensional. But the cast is superb throughout and if the film had been a little stronger I could have seen Rudolph being Oscar nominated, it's that good of a performance. I felt this film in a way that surprised me. It was loving ode to something I'm still searching and hoping for; love, family and a place to settle down.
No comments:
Post a Comment