Away We Go follows the troubles of expectant couple Burt and Verona as they embark on a journey of self discovery, and more importantly, a journey to discover the perfect place to raise their child.
The couple are caught in a crisis of confidence with the day ominously looming when the two thirty-somethings will have to confront the fact they’re not the free-living twenty-somethings they once were, and instead the responsibility of parenthood is upon them.
Away We Go - The Set Up
Burt – played by John Krasinski, who many will recognise as Jim from the US version of The Office – sells insurance futures over the phone and has a specially crafted 'phone voice' for grooming potential clients. Verona (Maya Rudolph) is an artist working freelance by drawing human anatomy for medical textbooks, a vocation she is able to fit around her pregnancy by working from the cramped environment of the couple's mobile home.
Despite being hopelessly in love with one another, the two couldn’t be more lost. Worried that they’ve both made shambles of their lives, Burt and Verona are desperate to avoid subjecting their child to a bad upbringing. After taking the decision to move closer to Burt’s parents to create a sound family unit, they’re hit with the bombshell that the grandparents-to-be will be uprooting to fulfil a long-planned move to Antwerp.
With the realisation that they’re now all alone, Burt and Verona decide to set off on a road trip across America, visiting old friends and acquaintances in the hope of discovering some inspiration and the perfect place to settle down and start a family.
Mendes Mixes Comedy and Tragedy to Great Effect in Away We Go
Sam Mendes has the fantastic ability to be able to produce deeply emotional movies while at the same time swiftly moving the story from sentimental drama to deadpan comedy with a relatively smooth transition, qualities which he demonstrated superbly in 1999 film American Beauty, which won a Best Director Oscar for Mendes on his feature film debut. It could be argued that Away We Go offers a similar comment on social and family mores as American Beauty (albeit with a completely different storyline), with Burt and Verona realising that not everybody shares their views on the way families should be run. To say the friends that Burt and Verona meet on their travels have changed since the last time they saw one another would be an understatement.
Mendes splits Away We Go into several long vignettes, almost acting as separate sketches, each one introducing us to a new city, and with it, a friend of either Burt or Verona. They travel to Phoenix, Tucson, Madison, Montreal and Miami, ticking off the boxes as they go. Where they may have been expecting to find idyllic family life in each city, Burt and Verona realise that their own apprehensions on their ability to be parents seem completely unfounded compared to some of the bad moral examples they become party to.
Maggie Gyllenhaal Cameos as Hippie Chick in Away We Go
Again, similar to American Beauty’s Lester Burnham, the two central characters serve as the straight act surrounded by insane individuals, with the clash of cultures spawning some cleverly comedic scenes. Maggie Gyllenhaal and Josh Hamilton are the highlight, playing as a hippie couple who have a bizarre aversion to baby buggies and have the strange belief in having sex in front of their children.
Following several errors in friendship-judgement and the emergence of a family crisis for Burt, the realisation dawns that even the most perfect families have their problems. Burt and Verona learn that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side and that they possess the one thing that is most important to both of them and to any couple embarking on the road to family life – each other.
Away We Go is just as likely to make the audience laugh as cry. Superbly acted by all involved, there are some wonderfully poignant scenes between Burt, Verona and their close family as they confront their inner fears of the future. There are parts of this film that almost everyone can relate to in some way or another and Mendes handles the sensitivity of the subject matter with sophistication and maturity, not allowing any scene to lapse into romantic cliché or hammy performance.
Verdict: 4/5
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