Director Sam Mendes’ previous film, Revolutionary Road, featured a married couple unraveling through a storm of shouting matches.  The unmarried couple in his next film, Away We Go, is at the opposite end of the spectrum.  They hardly argue.  In fact, one has to encourage the other to go ahead and raise his voice once in a while.  It is certainly a different kind of movie and it is fortunate enough not to be burdened with the weight of being a Titanic reunion.  It is also a much better movie.

The couple in the film is Burt and Verona.  Burt wants to get married, but Verona has always resisted his proposals.  They both have jobs that they can do from anywhere, but they live where they do so as to be close to Burt’s parents.  They are about to have a baby and are delighted to have the grandparents so close, but when the folks shock them by revealing their plans to move to Europe one month before the baby is born, they face the option of starting their family life by their lonesome.  Realizing they are no longer tied down, they decide to seek out alternative living situations.

So begins the road trip movie as they travel to Arizona, Wisconsin, Florida, and even Canada, trying to determine where is best for them to start their family.  Along the way they meet up with some old friends and family members, each of whom are raising their own families and have distinct methods of parenting.  Seeing these different family situations gives Burt and Verona an opportunity to see who they are, who they want to be and what they want for the little bun in the oven.

The film starts out sweetly and then wavers a bit through some awkward moments that had me squirming in my seat a little bit.  Nevertheless, as the film developed, I realized these awkward moments had helped me grow closer towards the characters of Burt and Verona as they had to sit through these moments right along with me.  This identification strongly boosted the impact of the film’s second half which is really the meat of the film.

It helps that the characters encountered in the second half of the film carry so much more weight than the characters in the first half, which felt more like comic relief.  There are some moving supporting performances, particularly from Chris Messina and Melanie Lynskey as old college friends who now live in Montreal with their adopted children, and a good exchange between Verona and her sister regarding their departed parents.

The film looks very different from previous Mendes films.  Ever since storming onto the scene to win an Oscar in 1999 with his first movie American Beauty, the director’s films had very polished and stylized Hollywood looks to them.  In contrast, Away We Go looks like an independent film.  It is still a beautiful film, but smaller.   The shift in style allows the audience to focus more on the two very delightful lead characters, characters that seem very real and believable as a young couple on the verge of starting a family.

In lieu of casting megastars—like, say, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet—in the roles of Burt and Verona, Mendes instead chose television stars John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph, both of whom deliver subtly powerful performances.  DiCaprio and Winslet could have been great in the roles, but I doubt they could have grounded the characters as well as Krasinski and Rudolph.  These didn’t feel like movie characters.  They felt real.

Rudolph, known more for her comedy sketch work on Saturday Night Live, is particularly enchanting and touching as the pregnant Verona, still grieving from the death of her parents.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about Away We Go, however, is that it manages to turn a scene that opens with a “never” response to a marriage proposal and turn it into one of the most romantic scenes of the year.

Away We Go is rated R for “language and some sexual content.”  Aside from a brief scene at the opening, the sexual content is just in the language.  It’s not explicitly dirty, but it is enough to warrant the R rating.

Courtesy of a local publicist, Jeff attended a promotional screening of Away We Go.