Away We Go (2009)

A couple who is expecting their first child travel around the U.S. in order to find a perfect place to start their family. Along the way, they have misadventures and find fresh connections with an assortment of relatives and old friends who just might help them discover "home" on their own terms for the first time.

Director:

Sam Mendes

Writers:

Dave Eggers, Vendela Vida

Stars:

John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph, Allison Janney

3 wins & 10 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
John Krasinski	...	Burt
Maya Rudolph	...	Verona
Carmen Ejogo	...	Grace
Catherine O'Hara	...	Gloria
Jeff Daniels	...	Jerry
Allison Janney	...	Lily
Jim Gaffigan	...	Lowell
Samantha Pryor	...	Ashley
Conor Carroll	...	Taylor
Maggie Gyllenhaal	...	LN
Josh Hamilton	...	Roderick
Bailey Harkins	...	Wolfie
Brendan Spitz	...	Baby Neptune
Jaden Spitz	...	Baby Neptune
Chris Messina	...	Tom

Storyline

Burt Farlander and Verona De Tessant are a couple steeped in eccentricity and irregularity but are very much in love. So when they find out that Verona is pregnant they seem to be taking it in their stride. Verona is enjoying pregnancy, Burt is already practicing skill that he believes a good father should have, and they living in the same state as Burt's parents, Jerry and Gloria, so that their prospective daughter can have grandparents. However, things are shaken up when Burt and Verona go to dinner at Jerry and Gloria's house, as Burt's parents reveal a surprising piece of news. They have decided to move to Antwerp in Belguim a month before the baby is due, scuppering Burt and Verona's plans of having their children's grandparents around. Because Verona lost her parents when she was relatively young, she finds this news very hard to take, but the resilient couple quickly find a way to turn it in to a positive. It becomes obvious that this is what the pair needed, as they decide to ...

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Plot Keywords:

road trip | train travel | arizona territory | arizona | arizona desert | 

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Genres:

Comedy | Drama | Romance

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for language and some sexual content

Details

Official Sites:

Official site Official site [France]

Country:

USA UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

26 June 2009 (USA)

Also Known As:

Untitled Sam Mendes Project

Filming Locations:

New Haven, Connecticut, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$17,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$130,411, 7 June 2009, Limited Release

Gross USA:

$9,451,946

Company Credits

Production Co:

Focus Features, Edward Saxon Productions (ESP), Big Beach Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

98 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital DTS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

This is first Sam Mendes film where Thomas Newman did not compose the original score. Newman has scored every Mendes film since American Beauty (1999).

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Goofs

When Burt and Verona board their train to go to Wisconsin, they step into one of Amtrak's curved-sided, late-twentieth-century "Amfleet" cars (a type of car in which no sleeping accommodations currently exist). The train appears to consist largely or entirely of such cars. In the next shot, however, the interior of their car is seen to be that of a mid-twentieth-century North-American-type sleeping car, one that would have to be straight-sided in order for the bunks shown to fit into the room as they do. Later, Burt and Verona are shown sitting at a table in another straight-sided mid-twentieth-century car, a dining or lounge car (it's not clear which) that does not resemble any such car that Amtrak has used in the past twenty-five years or more.

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Quotes

Lily: Burt, you worked with a lesbian, didn't you?
Burt Farlander: Oh! Yes. Yes, I did.
Lily: I can't hear you!
Burt Farlander: I just don't think we should be talking about it right in front of the children.
Lily: Oh, please. Burt, It's just white noise to them. Listen, watch this. Taylor? Taylor? Taylor? Taylor? Taylor? Taylor? Taylor?
[no answer from his son, seated nearby]
Lily: I can keep going on and on. They don't hear us. Seriously. So tell me about the dyke.

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Connections

Featured in The Rotten Tomatoes Show: Year One/Whatever Works/The Proposal (2009)

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Soundtracks

Orange Sky
Written and Performed by Alexi Murdoch
Courtesy of Zero Summer Records

User Reviews

Successful Detour for Director Mendes

Just six months after introducing us to one of the most unlikable and miserable movie couples viewers had ever seen in "Revolutionary Road", director Sam Mendes takes us on a little detour from his usual style/genre and allows us to meet one of the most likable on-screen pairings in recent years with "Away We Go".

TV's John Krasinski is the amiable goof-ball and insurance-futures' salesman Burt and SNL alum Maya Rudolph (in a quietly revelatory performance built on her gift of perfectly timed facial expressions) is his long-time girlfriend Verona who does illustrations for medical textbooks. Suddenly they find themselves pregnant and searching for a real home in this semi-autobiographical tale from scribes Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida. The pair, untethered to their current situations, decide to travel all over North America visiting family and friends so that they might find that perfect spot to lay down roots. Fans of Eggers' books should be pleased that the screenplay is imbued with his popular brand of sharp humor mixed with diluted sentimentality. The tale of these two thirty-somethings trying to do the right thing not only for themselves but for their daughter-to-be is filled with humor and warmth that allows us to relate to both the chaos around the characters and their desire to shield their baby from it.

Under Mendes surprisingly laid-back director's hand, the material and the performances rise above the clichés of the "she's having a baby!" sub-genre of dramedies while successfully interweaving elements of "discovering yourself on a road trip" indie flicks. Episodic and sometimes meandering in nature, the film's acts range from laugh-out-loud hilarious (including a scene-stealing Allison Janney making a bid for worst mother of the year in grand comedic style) to laughably absurd (witness Maggie Gyllenhaal as a self-righteous alterna-mom with an unfounded hatred towards strollers) to unexpectedly poignant (in an unexpected side-trip to Miami to help Burt's brother through a crisis). You won't find any screamingly awful delivery room scenes here, and while there is some semi-crude sexual humor, it's reality-based instead of raunchy and never overshadows the film's heart.

As with any Mendes' production, the cinematography (this time from Ellen Kuras) is artistically sound and serves as the perfect place for Mendes to paint his details. When the director uses a steady tracking shot moving through the passengers on a plane in mid-flight to focus in on the sun's hazy golden light coming through the windows highlighting the faces of our two stars sitting side-by-side, you can see Burt and Verona unified in a yearning pensive loneliness that makes you instantly root for their success. The promise of that scene is wonderfully fulfilled in the closing act (the details of which I will not divulge) which is probably the most hopeful denouement -- beautifully understated and with minimal dialogue -- you will ever find in a Mendes' film. As with anything in life, even in the most hopeful of atmospheres there is still some uncertainty, but if we're lucky, we'll see the talented Maya Rudolph in more lead roles and Sam Mendes will take time for more pleasant detours such as this.