*****
Director Sam Mendes once again turns his spotlight on relationships in new film Away We Go, this time bringing things up-to-date in modern day America rather than the 1950s suburbs of 2008’s Revolutionary Road.
Burt (John Krasinski) and Verona (Maya Rudolph) are a thirty-something unmarried couple who are about to have their first child, the plan being to allow the baby’s grandparents to help raise her in the first few years.
When granny and grandpa announce they’re going to be moving abroad a month before the baby’s birth, Burt and Verona decide to take a road trip around America to meet friends and relations who could make up a new family unit for the new arrival.
The first thing that’s refreshing about Away We Go is the high level of humour running through it. Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida’s script is packed with one liners and clever asides on the complexities of modern life, none of them feeling forced or out of place.
Secondly, Burt and Verona are real people with real hopes, dreams and desires who have ended up together at an important time in each others lives and who don’t know all the answers. Moments such as the couple’s kiss outside their parked car, reminiscent of a similar scene in Revolutionary Road, display Krasinski and Rudolph’s chemistry, crucial if we’re to buy into their situation.
The effort that has gone into making the cast appear as if they’ve known each other for years extends to the supporting characters. Another important scene, featuring Verona and her sister (Carmen Ejogo) sitting in a bath showroom display and remembering their late parents, is genuinely moving, something rare for a modern US comedy.
As well as two strong leads, Jeff Daniels and Catherine O’Hara make suitably kooky parents for Burt while Allison Janney, better known as CJ in The West Wing, nearly steals the film as Lily. Only Maggie Gyllenhaal is left to flounder as the New Age Earth mother LN, though she gives her all to a weak character.
One throwaway scene featuring a rather chubby young boy describing how he treated his baby sister typifies the humour of the piece, the odd curveball thrown into the mix which in lesser films would be overplayed or milked for every last laugh.
Although the final scenes may not quite offer the strong payoff that the majority of the film points to, Away We Go is still a more than satisfying trip for both Burt and Verona and the audience, laugh out loud funny and sentimental in equal measures.
Here’s hoping Mendes continues to have a bit more fun with his work and that this is just the start of his transformation in the anti-Judd Apatow.
Away We Go opens in UK cinemas on 18 September 2009.
Filed under: Film Review
