Sam Mendes’
Away We Go manages to infuse the worst two types of American
indies—an empty, but contemplatively-styled mumblecore and a
forcibly quirky “charmer” designed with mainstream cross-over
potential—into a single movie. As it meanders along, viewers are
often reminded that they’re confronting real emotions in the
presence of authentic characters, but this is all smoke and
mirrors on Mendes’ part. If one doesn’t fall victim to the
movie’s pressures and come to accept it as beyond one’s
intelligence, one will see it for the annoying, emo drivel it
really is.
At its core,
this is essentially a travelogue, only none of the places
featured are inviting. In fact, Away We Go is the
unsubstantiated assault on American suburbia that so many
mistakenly said Mendes more constructive and better constructed
Revolutionary Road was. Aimless young couple Burt
Farlander (John Krasinski) and Verona De Tessant (Maya Rudolph)
wander around the United States looking for a place to raise
their soon-to-be born child, only to find that most of the
prospects are depressing let-downs. They meet up with old
friends who have become ugly representations of every stereotype
of Americana, from the white-trash mother who treats her kids as
objects (Allison Janney) to the aloof liberal who breastfeeds
her 6-year-old and shares a bed with the entire family (Maggie
Gyllenhaal). Furthermore, Verona always nags Burt for conforming
to the role of American Macho Dude to keep his insurance clients
happy. In fact, things only start to look up when they leave the
country for Montreal. If that’s not subliminal message-making on
Mendes’ part, I don’t know what is. It’s an unwarranted attack.
I might be
more eager to welcome the annoying people and settings that
flesh out Away We Go if they were portrayed as
manifestations of Burt and Verona’s unhealthy emotional
isolation from the rest of the world. But Mendes does not depict
these characters critically. He treats them sympathetically
throughout, making it hard for the viewer not so see the duo’s
surroundings as a rational perception of the only two characters
that are meant to be likable. As such, it is implied that the
rest of America is a bunch of wacked-out independent-film
caricatures, a cliché and uninteresting assertion to say the
least. Then again, it’s possible that the mumbling, bumbling
couple were just poorly conceived by screenwriters Dave Eggers
and Vendela Vida and, as a result, the emotional complexities
that would have made Away We Go a much better and less
culturally-critical movie were already absent at the onset.
Whether the
writing was the main culprit in the film’s lack of success is
debatable, but it certainly does Mendes and the cast no favors.
These characters do a lot of apathetic emoting—an
all-too-accurate paradoxical description—in much the way bad
“indie” mouthpieces tend to, but they don’t come across as
humans. They are that way precisely because writers
Eggers and Vida try so hard to humanize them, with random
dialogue and awkward silences that practically scream out “Look!
I’m mimicking the natural flow of life!” But this tactic is
transparent and ultimately comes off for exactly what it is:
bullshit artifice that only the saps who cry at Julia Roberts
rom-coms will consider enlightened and touching. In fact, I’m
not even sure what to make of the performances by leads
Krasinski and Rudolph. Burt and Verona are so sparse and
unlikable on paper that these could be remarkable performances
given the requirements, for all I know. I suppose I can at least
criticize them for choosing to participate in the project.
Away We Go
may put up a good fight in trying to convince the viewer it’s
actually profound, with beautiful cinematography from veteran
Ellen Kuras and a great soundtrack. But when one steps back and
considers even these two elements, Away We Go ultimately
seems like a poorer than poor man’s Garden State.
Self-importantly moping its way to a “crowd-pleasing” conclusion
that has all the subtlety of a chainsaw to the face, this is a
movie that’s bogus in terms of emotion, theme, and narrative. It
doesn’t get much worse than that for the moviegoer.
-Danny Baldwin,
Bucket Reviews
Review Published
on: 6.14.2009
Screened on:
6.9.2009 at the Landmark Hillcrest Cinemas in San Diego, CA.
Away We Go is rated R and runs 97
minutes.
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