Going Away and Coming Home

In any relationship, both sides have wondered at some point how they will end up in the future. It’s just natural to wonder if they’ll even be together five years down the road, if they’ll be married or have children, or even if they’ll grow old together. In director Sam Mendes’ Away We Go, a young couple’s road trip gives them insight into different examples of relationships and how they can make their own relationship work.

When Burt Farlander (John Krasinski) and Verona De Tessant (Maya Rudolph) accidentally get pregnant, they learn that Burt’s parents have sold the house they were supposed to live in. Burt and Verona figure they don’t have to live in their little town, so they begin to visit friends and family across the United States (and Canada too!) to find the right place to raise their family. Along the way, they meet a couple who hate being parents, New Age-y parents who don’t like strollers in their house, a couple who love adopting kids because they can’t have any of their own, and Burt’s brother whose wife just abandoned him and their daughter.

Despite this film being directed by a big name like Sam Mendes, Away We Go feels like a very small movie in the sense that the main protagonists are in pretty much every scene. Although they go on their road trip, it’s mostly done through car rentals and even by train, adding to the intimate feel. Maybe it’s because the dialogue from the writing couple of Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida talks about the anxiety that thirtysomethings feel when they start considering if they’ve accomplished a lot at their age that resonated with me. When Verona asks, “Burt, are we fuck-ups?” It struck a major chord for me.

Seeing all of these different kinds of relationships in their natural habitats allowed Burt and Verona enough distance to assess what they liked and didn’t like in each sample. LN (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and Roderick (Josh Hamilton) are total dicks while espousing their New Age ideas of raising kids. Lily (Allison Janney) and Lowell (Jim Gaffigan) seem to have lost the spark in their marriage and that was hilarious too. However, it was the Montreal couple of Tom (Chris Messina) and Munch (Melanie Lynskey) that breaks your heart. They have all of these adopted kids to shelter, but their own efforts to conceive have been unsuccessful.

Krasinski is so different from his usual role of Jim Halpert in The Office here and it’s not just because he’s got a beard and glasses. He actually does some solid acting as the guy who wants to marry his girlfriend and provide a future for their baby that he’s willing to drive around until they find the perfect spot for that future. Maya Rudolph made a name for herself on Saturday Night Live copying different celebrities, but in this role, she comes across as vulnerable, scared, and very believable. It’s a nice contrast to see these two break out of their familiar comedy molds and try their hand at a little drama, and this is an excellent vehicle for them to show that they are so much more than what we’ve seen them do on their respective series.

The soundtrack, with songs mostly performed by Alexi Murdoch, is excellent. The songs capture the road trip feel as well as the fear and uncertainty that Burt and Verona feel about their future. They both share a lot of uncertainty and anxiety over how they are going to raise a child with so many bad parents around them, but that’s also part of the adventure that they experience together on this trip.