AWAY WE GO

Directed By Sam Mendes

This is the sweetest movie I have seen all year.  It stars Maya Rudolph as Verona, and John Krasinski as Burt, a not so perfect, thirty something couple who are expecting the birth of their first child.

The couple's plan to live near the baby's paternal grandparents, goes awry when Jerry (Jeff Daniels) and Gloria (Catherine O'Hara) announce they are leaving the country for two years.   Verona and Burt are shocked, saddened and feel a bit betrayed.  There is certainly no reason to stay in Colorado.  So the question becomes where do they want to raise their child.

They decide to take a cross country journey visiting friends and family.  The film, directed by Sam Mendes, is basically a road trip with great characters.   Standouts include Allison Janey, a loud mouthed, uncouth former colleague in Phoenix and Burt's Wisconsin 'cousin' Ellen, played to perfection by Maggie Gyllenhaal.  Although total opposites in their approach to child rearing, both women send Verona and Burt running as fast as they can.

When Verona and Burt visit their former college classmates in Toronto they think they have found an ideal adopted family filled with love and joy.  But a night out with their classmates reveals that Munch, heartbreakingly portrayed by Melanie Lynskey, craves a child of her own, and husband Tom (Chris Messina) struggles
to preserve the family.

A trip to Tucson reunites Verona with her baby sister.  She is forced to re-examine some of her past and gains a fresh perspective on family.  Burt, too, gains perspective on family, when they visit his brother, Courtney, in Miami.  Courtney's wife has abandoned the family and he is struggling to maintain family and himself,.  

In the best trampoline scene ever filmed, Verona and Burt recommit themselves to each other and their unborn child. 

This film reminds me that parenting is one of the few contracts we enter into without licensing.

AWAY WE GO is a bit of a departure for Mendes but he is up to the challenge.  I wanted to slap Burt's parents and cousin.  I wanted to gag Verona's friend Lily.
Of course, these are characters we all recognize, but wish we didn't..  There are too many good scenes to recount, but aside from the trampoline, the bathtub with sister Grace and the nightclub with Tom and Munch are standouts.

I totally identified with Burt and Verona even though it has been 30+ years since I faced parenthood and for the record, neither set of grandparents deserted us.  I am anxious to see screen writers' Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida 's second effort.

Bring a hankie.