Lacking in both ambition and narrative scope, Away We Go is an overly tidy little drama written by Dave Eggers and his wife and directed by Sam Mendes. Burt and Verona are a thirty-something couple unexpectedly expecting their first child. Faced with the imminent arrival of the daughter that will change their lives and the prospect that they are, in Verona's words, "fuck-ups" the down-home, hipster-ish couple set off on a cross-country journey to discover the home they'd like to raise their child in. With stops that include Miami, Montreal, Madison and Phoenix their road-trip consists of a series of vignettes in which the couple are exposed to the different parenting styles and quirks of their kooky friends and relatives. Despite some moving performances, and a few character interactions which feel very real, the movie ultimately feels like a series like a series of observations on parenting strung together in a flimsy narrative that attempts to speak, I think, to some more general condition of modern life. Touching, but ultimately unsatisfying.
Alison Janney plays an insane giantess with no personal boundaries, frankly discussing her son's "trophy" ears and her daughter's "dykiness" at a dog race - while the children being discussed are actually in earshot. These particular parents have resigned themselves to a fractured, difficult and disappointing life in a world they feel is fundamentally broken and inhospitable, albeit with some humour and grit (although that could all be Janney's performance).
Maggie Gylenhall puts in the funniest performance as a trust-fund earth mother who shuns strollers, breastfeeds any hungry child within reach and keeps a communal bed, refusing to keep her and her husband's sexual life hidden from their children. Played and directed with a heavy hand we're supposed to tut at the way privilege and material comfort are actually what enable new-age brands of parenting and family life.
An unremarkable trip to an unmemorable couple in Montreal follows. There's a loooong boring speech about love being the 'mortar' of family life that seems forced and unconvincing. Also off-key is a scene in which the wife of the aforementioned unmemorable couple takes to the stage at an amateur strip-night to indulge her feelings of anguish in the face of her fifth miscarriage and her continued inability to have children. Nevermind that they have a happy family of at least 4 adopted children. The only scene I really liked during this sequence is one that reminded me of my own childhood: Burt and Verona arrive at their friend's home and are ushered into the tv-room by one of the children with no parents in sight. Strewn across the room, the adopted children are draped and slouched over the furniture, ignorning the guests in what is essentially a benign way. Nicely obvserved. Although I think my brothers and sister and I were always a little more anxious and irritated. Still, I like.
There's an unexpected stop-off in Miami to aid Burt's newly-abandoned brother and his daughter before our anti-heroes finally end up "home" (announced by a huge, sans title similar to the others which have punctuated the movie and exaggerated its episodic nature). Home, in this case, being Verona's abandoned family house in a lush, green landscape facing the ocean. Why the heack didn't they get here earlier?!? yeah, yeah, issues.
The end.
Note: Excruciatingly bad singer-songwriter soundtrack. argh.
Added note: There's a defeatist and sometimes fatalistic tone about the movie that's slightly off-putting in retrospect. It doesn't sit that well considering Vendela's condemnation of people who think the world is fundamentally and irreparably broken near the start of the movie and it's this kind of thing which helps make the movie feel very slight and insubstantial.
Nice excerpt from the Slate review:
"The movie's peripatetic structure would feel more like a true journey if Burt and Verona didn't repeat the same experience in every place they visit. Over and over, they're confronted with a negative example of family life, a picture of what they don't want to be when they grow up: vulgar drunken sluts? Nope. Cloying New Age twits? Definitely not. When they pay an emergency visit to Burt's brother, whose wife has just abandoned him and their young daughter, Burt and Verona agree, in a whispered conversation atop a backyard trampoline, that child abandonment will not be an option. Isn't that setting the bar a bit low? Who makes moral decisions in this kind of contextless vacuum? And if Burt and Verona really are the reasonably intelligent, attractive people they seem to be, why don't they have a better assortment of friends to choose from?"
Excellent excerpt from the NY Times review:
"Really, “Away We Go” is about the flight from adulthood, from engagement, from responsibility, even as it cleverly disguises itself as a search for all those things. But the dream of being left alone in a world of your own making, far from anything sad or icky or difficult, is a child’s fantasy. Not an unattractive or uncommon one, it must be said, and for that reason it is tempting to follow Burt and Verona into the precious, hermetic paradise that awaits them at the end of the road. You know they will be happy there. But you should also understand that you are not welcome. Does it sound as if I hate this movie? Don’t be silly. But don’t be fooled. This movie does not like you."
Roger Ebert is, however, right in his appreciation of the two main characters:
"Burt and Verona are two characters rarely seen in the movies: thirtysomething, educated, healthy, self-employed, gentle, thoughtful, whimsical, not neurotic and really truly in love."
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