Away We Go – Review

After American Beauty and Revolutionary Road, director Sam Mandes has now come out with his fifth feature in ten years. Hollywood movie Away We Go is the tenderest film that he has done upto date. The director has milked malaise from Burt and Verona"s road trip through suburbs.

Away We Go is a little road comedy, which has everything - great cast, prestigious director, tender concept, clever script from acclaimed novelists. Husband and wife Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida have penned the willfully woolly screenplay for the movie, which is episodic narrative and it is spun from a thin, cute premise.

Away We Go is about the flight from adulthood, from engagement, from responsibility. The movie deals with ideas and ideals that could not be more true to life. It is a sincere story about making it. It is buoyed by a couple"s genuine rapport and insecurities. It brings out their melancholy state of being both unsure and essentially hopeful about living in this world.

Burt Farlander and his girlfriend Verona (John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph) are enjoying a marriage-less relationship. They live in a ramshackle, poorly heated house and drive a boxy old Volvo. They are expecting their first child and searching for a place to raise their unborn baby.

The movie begins with Burt and Verona's visit to his over-sharing parents (Catherine O'Hara and Jeff Daniels), who announce their trip to Europe. Then Burt and Verona head out on their homesteading journey through Arizona, Wisconsin, Montreal and Florida to visit other family and friends.

Away We Go is a metaphor about filling a house with love. It suffers by being a movie about a theme and meaning. All the supporting cast simply rotates in and out during Burt and Verona's trip. Each of them demonstrate to the main couple, in glaringly obvious ways, how not to raise their baby.

Ellen Kuras" cinematography has grown somewhat louder. His leads before the camera find themselves giving low-key a good name. Thomas Newman"s music evokes the film's emphasis on drowsy vocals and a quiet guitar. Special song score by Alexi Murdoch is probably his silliest creative error.

Away We Go is a change of pace for Sam Mendes, but unlike his previous movie, it ends without hanging around in hope of an Oscar nomination. It looks like a short story. It has obscenity and sexual situations. It is just obnoxious.