What do you get when you combine a revered dramatic director with a pair of offbeat novelists and two wise-cracking TV alums? Oddly enough, a delightful film called "Away We Go," which on paper seems like yet another quirkfest straight out of Sundance, but it has a sneaky way of winning people over. You'll see.
The film opens in a bedroom, where low-30-something couple Burt (John Krasinski of "The Office") and Verona (Maya Rudolph of "Saturday Night Live" fame) are messing around and discover, lo and behold, that she is pregnant. With a baby on the way, they are forced to look at their lives and decide what it is they really want. But, like most people, they don't have the magic answer to that question and so they hit the road and seek a place to call home.
On their journey, which takes them everywhere from the picturesque deserts of Arizona to the buzzing citylife of Montreal, they visit a handful of characters who teach them something about themselves and their plight. Among them: bad mother Lily (Allison Janney) who openly calls her kids fat and stupid; Munch (Melanie Lynskey) and Tom (Chris Messina), a loving married couple with a gaggle of adopted children; and Courtney (Paul Schneider), whose wife recently skipped town on him and his daughter. The most ridiculous and entertaining in her new-age pomposity is LN (Maggie Gylllenhaal), flipping off typical parental roles and especially strollers, saying, "I love my kids -- why would I want to push them away from me?"
"Away We Go" is director Sam Mendes' fifth film and first crack at comedy, and it's written by acclaimed novelists Vendela Vida and Dave Eggers (scribe of Spike Jonze's upcoming "Where The Wild Things Are") with tongue-in-cheek wit. The film is a far-removed cousin of Mendes' explosive "Revolutionary Road" about a couple in the throes of misery and resentment; the central relationship between Verona and Burt in "Away We Go" is one of compassion and tenderness. They're young, they're scared, they're madly in love.
On the acting side, Krasinski eases into his role like a runner into his favorite pair of worn-in sneakers, embracing the hippie-like ways of Burt along with the unkempt facial hair. And while Rudolph made us laugh by impersonating everyone from Beyonce to Donatella Versace on "SNL," here she expresses her normal, huggable ways with a slick level of comfort.
Sometimes there is beauty in the simplicity and familiarity of things, told in a slightly different way, and that is what makes "Away We Go" glisten. It's not trying to break the barriers of conventionality or shake up the world of cinema. Rather, it's about taking the scenic route in life, preparing for the hope and excitement and fear of new beginnings, while never forgetting to look out the window.
