Happy ending
Jul 1, 2009 |
A good rule of thumb for movie selection is to check the range of reviews: If, as in the case of Away We Go, some reviewers say it’s lousy, some say so-so, and some say it’s wonderful, the chances are high that it really might be worth seeing, and that it’s probably not some bland, contrived Sandra Bullock deal trying to be everything to everyone.
Away We Go has, for instance, grown-up lead characters, not the usually superannuated children making poo jokes. Here we have Verona (Maya Rudolph, late of SNL) and Burt (John Krasinski of The Office), both in their mid-30s, living together unmarried and with a baby on the way. Things, this genuinely happy twosome decide, have got to change. Verona opines that they, in their colorfully impoverished lifestyle, don’t really live like grown-ups, and must seek out a new place to live. And away they go, on various road trips to visit married people they know, to find “role models” for parenting. The news turns out to be disconcerting.
Away is a comedy-drama, plenty funny and plenty disturbing. The movie might hit too close to home for the reality-oblivious dumb-lucky crowd. Our couple first visits Burt’s parents, who are not interested in waiting for grandbaby and becoming doting grandfolks: this couple, played to perfection by Jeff Daniels and Catherine O’Hara, is off to live in Belgium, thank you very much, and no one had better get in their way.
The next visitation involves Verona’s one-time boss-lady (Allison Janney, also just about perfect), along with her husband and her kids. This terrible wife and mother is an acid-tongued daytime alcoholic and her family is in ruins. Whoops, no role models there. Burt and Verona then move on to a childhood friend (an inspired Maggie Gyllenhaal), a feminist-academic who more or less has gone extreme, pushing her delusions and agenda relentlessly (you could be reminded of a UH professor who teaches TV’s “Mr. Ed, the talking horse” as a an attack on women).
They travel onward but not upward to some other friends, and then to Burt’s brother whose wife has abandoned her family. You know, as in real life.
The screenplay is crisp, poignant and, in its own way, ambitious. Burt and Verona are genuinely happy, but as any writer will tell you, real happiness is harder to write than unhappiness (remember Mike Leigh’s terrific Happy Go Lucky last year? What gives? Two movies in two years’ time with believably happy characters–smart, thoughtful, pleasant people!).
Away is directed by Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Revolutionary Road), who knows a thing or two about unhappiness–and, it turns out, its opposite. This movie is a little diamond in the rough (read: reality) which will best be appreciated by people sort of like Burt and Verona, especially if they appreciate a little quirk in their grown-up entertainment. You know who you are.
