Away We Go

• 'Away We Go' on DVD September 29th, 2009!

  Published on: September 25, 2009

  By Shannon Nystedt
  MovieSet.com

  With a hilarious cast including The Office’s John Krasinski and SNL’s Maya Rudolph, you are assured to get a good laugh out of director Sam Mendes’ (American Beauty) Away We Go.  The film follows longtime couple Burt and Verona as they travel around the U.S. in order to find a perfect place to start their family after they find out that Burt’s parents are moving away from Colorado – thereby eliminating the expectant couple’s main reason for living there. The couple embarks on an ambitious itinerary to evaluate cities  and visit friends and family who just might help them discover “home” on their own terms for the first time. Staring along side Krasinski and Rudolph are Maggie Gyllenhaal, Allison Janney, Jeff Daniels and Catherine O’Hara. Get ready for extra laughs with the DVD’s special features including Deleted Scenes, The Making of Away We Go, Feautre Commentary and more!

  Read more about Away We Go on DVD here.

  Read More »

   

• “Away We Go” is Less Than the Sum of Its Parts

  Published on: June 29, 2009

  Darren Barefoot

  Early on in Away We Go, Maya Rudolph’s character asks her boyfriend, “are we fuck-ups?” Because Dave Eggers co-wrote the script, the answer is surely a resounding “yes”. In an earlier post mentioning Eggers’ first novel, I said “Eggers is a great stylist, but must all of his books feature such aimless losers?” In truth, I’ve only read two of his books, but that’s kind of how I felt about Away We Go.

  Sam Mendes directs, so the film is a visual treat. In “American Beauty” and “Revolutionary Road”, the British director seemed a little obsessed with the American suburb. In this movie, Mendes heads out on the highway, looking for adventure. The result is splendid road trip fare, from Phoenix to Montreal.

  Read the full article here.

  Read More »

   

• Practicing Virtue, and Proud of It

  Published on: June 7, 2009

  By A. O. SCOTT
  

  François Duhamel/Focus Features

  Maya Rudolph and John Krasinski as a couple about to have a daughter in “Away We Go,” directed by Sam Mendes.

  Are we screw-ups? Verona wonders aloud. (I’m paraphrasing.) She and her boyfriend, Burt, expecting their first child, live in a ramshackle, poorly heated house and drive a boxy old Volvo. They are maybe a little scruffy, but they seem, objectively, to be doing all right, with jobs that don’t require them to go to work and a relationship that looks tender and durable.

   

  

  François Duhamel/Focus Features

  Mr. Krasinski and Ms. Rudolph.

  Verona’s question may or may not be disingenuous, but the answer provided by “Away We Go,” the slack little road comedy in which it arises, is unambiguous. Far from being screw-ups, Verona and Burt, played with passive-aggressive winsomeness by Maya Rudolph and Jon Krasinski, are manifestly superior to everyone else in the movie and, by implication, the world.

  And even though they express themselves with a measure of diffidence, it’s clear that they are acutely, at times painfully, aware of their special status as uniquely sensitive, caring, smart and cool beings on a planet full of cretins and failures.

  The smug self-regard of this movie, directed by Sam Mendes from a script by Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida, takes a while to register, partly because Ms. Rudolph and Mr. Krasinski are appealing and unaffected performers and partly because the writing has some humor and charm. The opening scene, which finds the couple in bed, is disarmingly sweet and candid in its depiction of the sexual rapport of longtime lovers. There is real intimacy and affection between them, which is wonderful until, before too long, it becomes as insufferable as the songs by Alexi Murdoch, which similarly wear out their rueful, faux-naïve welcome.

  Read More »

   

Click here to read our full news archive