Away We Go

... the main sin of "Away We Go" is simple dullness. The movie drags and dawdles when it needs to skip along.

                                             - Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com

These portraits are more contemptuous than comic, filled with enough meanness and mockery, deserved or not, to make laughter the furthest thing from your mind.

                                             -Kenneth Turan, LA Times

Does it sound as if I hate this movie? Don’t be silly. But don’t be fooled. This movie does not like you.

                                             -A.O. Scott, New York Times

 ... the characters similarly hem and haw about not knowing what they really want to do with their lives and whether, already in their early thirties, that makes them "fuck-ups." (Yes.) Burt's medical illustrator girlfriend, Verona (Maya Rudolph), is six months' pregnant with their first child, but doesn't want to get married—too hip.

                                             -Scott Foundas, The Village Voice

Jesus Christ! Did Dave Eggers piss in these people's cornflakes or what?

Normally I refrain from mentioning the words of my fellow film critics. This is for a variety of reasons:

a) Who am I to question the sacred teachings of the elders?

b) Acknowledging them gives strength to their dark powers.

c) I don't get a share of their payola.

and

d) I am extremely jealous of their cushy gigs.

But rarely do any of them get together and collectively shit on an otherwise charming little movie unless there are ulterior motives to their petty snarking and drag queen bitchery.

Away We Go seems to be that film.

Zacharek complains of the film's "dullness". A ninety-eight minute road movie from today's hippest, married writing team with two likeable leads and a fresh set of quirky assholes as background characters every fifteen minutes can never really be described as "dull". Calculated? Sure. Cutesy? Maybe. Coy? Perhaps. But never "dull".

Turan finds the two leads "contemptuous". A bright, funny, loving, socially-conscious, mid-thirtysomething couple who are seeking a new and better home in which to raise their first child are filled with "meanness and mockery" according to the LA Times' prominent cinematic light.

Scott, from the paper of record, didn't hate the film but warns us, like some Podunk populist from the heartland, that Away We Go is too smug, snobbish and self-important to take the common movie-going audience seriously. When did a NY Times film reviewer give a fuck about anyone who purchased a ticket south of Bleeker Street?

And the shockingly moralizing coup de grâce comes from Scott Foundas of The Village Voice who finds anyone searching for life meaning at the advanced, decrepit age of thirty-four as a "fuck-up". He also lambastes Rudolph's pregnant character as "too hip" for eschewing the institution of marriage. This, from the guy who writes for the Voice?! I could understand his call for exemplary wedlock if she was gay or a tranny but, seriously, who let Michael Medved into the building?

Away We Go is a charming little lark about a couple (John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph) who find themselves pregnant and suddenly on the precipice of having to grow the hell up. They have chosen to live outside the mainstream so far (you know, like film critics). He sells insurance futures by phone and she is an illustrator. Their home is a tad ramshackle but their existence is fun, heady and loving.

The pregnancy impels them to seek better climes for their future and their impending child. They agree to travel to the homes of various friends and relatives to choose a spot to raise their family. The picture takes on a road movie format as the couple visit his parents (Jeff Daniels and Catherine O'Hara) only to be informed the folks will be moving to Antwerp for a few years and are renting out their home to strangers instead of hanging around and watching their grandchild be born. Apparently we are supposed to condemn this behavior. But who can blame them really? When they get back, the kid will be talking and hopefully sleeping through the night. Sounds like a good plan to me. Of course, everything I know about children I've picked up from sitcoms and pornography so I let this kerfuffle pass.

They move on to a former co-worker of Rudolph's in Arizona. She (Allison Janney) is a brassy drunk with two fat kids and a fatter douche for a husband. The frightening reality of living amongst these pot-bellied, Republican suburbanites drives them to an old friend of Krasinski's; a granola-crunchy professor (Maggie Gyllenhaal) with some whole-earth child-rearing practices that make for the film's most cringe-inducing, hilarious encounter. Proving my theory that nothing is more fun than abusing the shit out of hippies and fucking up their worldview.

Here the film does err by taking a turn for the far too serious. The next two stops are with some college friends in Montreal who have adopted the united colors of Benetton as their ersatz family due to multiple miscarriages. A real psuedo-introspective downer which never achieves the depth that screenwriters Eggers and his wife, Vendela Vida, strive for. Krasinski's brother in Miami offers little as well, as his wife has abandoned him and their young daughter. These scenes work a bit better in pointing out the fleeting nature of love and the ever-altering needs of people who take the plunge into parenthood.

Although the movie never regains the comedic momentum from its first half, the melancholy navel-gazing of the last third leads to a surprisingly touching and fulfilling ending.     

Krasinki is funny as always but Rudolph is the surprise here. I was never a big fan of her work on SNL. To be fair, I haven't found that show funny since John Belushi died. But she absolutely shines here. She plays straight woman to Krasinski's goofery with a confidence not often found in an actress transitioning from small to big screen.

So forget the piddling snorts and grievances of my contemporaries in the critical world and check out this smart, well-written rom-com.

Wow, I just realized how seldom I get to type those words - "smart, well-written rom-com".