Away We Go and other things you never say when your leaving

Sam Mendes is not my favorite director, but it took a film that had really no stylistic traces of the filmmaker to make me appreciate him as a director. This is not a Sam Mendes film, it is not even an art-house version of a Sam Mendes film, this was made by a man that wanted to distance himself from everything he had done before, weather it be because he just wanted a change of scenery or because he was to exhausted after dealing with the dark devastation's of a failing marriage in  Revolutionary Road. 

Away We Go follows a couple Burt (John Krasinski) and Verona (Maya Rudolph) as they travel around North America to find where they would like to live and start a family after discovering Verona is pregnant. The discovery of this pregnancy in the first scene is the funniest part of the movie (unfortunately it goes down hill from there). Burt and Verona are two sides of the same person, they react together and bounce situations off of one another, they don't ever really fight and have some interesting quirks themselves. It is actually refreshing to see a romantic comedy in which the couple's relationship is strong enough so that they don't have to have the typical break up and get back together situation, and to top that off, to have a strong couple in a Sam Mendes movie, that is a miracle!

There is clever dialogue throughout, and some genuine laughs, but the issue I have with this movie is in it's forced premise and insanely quirky characters. The format goes a little something like this, go to a city, meet up with weird, socially inept characters and worst of all unrealistic characters and then decide you don't want to live in that whole city because you had some bad hosts. Structurally it is too easy and too lazy, which is a disappointment considering the dialogue and themes of anxiety in the modern world are nicely touched upon. And since the formula is so lazy it ruins otherwise great supporting performances from Allison Janney and Maggie Gyllenhaal.

I'm still not convinced John Krasinski has any range as an actor and all Burt was is Jim from the Office with a beard and a more aloof attitude. Maya Rudolph fit the role well, but didn't have the chops for more difficult lines, however I look forward to seeing her mature in the future (hopefully she will continue to get movies).

The great thing about movies like Revolutionary Road and to a lesser extent American Beauty are they touch on a tone and mood that transcends the films themselves. He can't ever find the truth in this comedy and because of that the whole thing feels forced. 

*1/2