- Actually, that plot synopsis tells you pretty much all you need to know about this movie since there’s not much else to it. Burt and Verona (really?) travel around having little vignetted encounters with people in drastically different familial situations so that they can taste test what kind of family they themselves want to form. At the start of the movie, Burt describes the kind of childhood he wants their child to have and Verona says that that’s the childhood she had; naturally, by the end of the movie they come full circle and end up at her long abandoned childhood home. Surprise! (Except not.)
- I have a lot of disdain for the plot and most of the supporting characters, but I enjoyed John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph so I feel in the middle on this one. It’s nice to have characters in a relationship who don’t, for the sake of tension in the script, relate to each other with barely concealed loathing or belittlement or emasculation or whatever else that passes for relationships in most movies. I don’t want to go out on a limb too much here, but I think these characters actually like each other! Which is good because they’re having an effing baby together. They’re a team.
On the other hand, the crew of people they encounter while trying to determine what their own family dynamic should be like is obnoxious to the tenth degree. There’s a difference between recognizing that what works for one family may not work for you and painting all of these families as crazy motherfuckers of one stripe or another. Allison Janney was completely obnoxious as Verona’s former boss, which I know was the entire point of her character but does not make it any more bearable. Maggie Gyllenhaal was quite possibly the most stereotypically privileged, new-agey mother type I’ve ever seen, breastfeeding her colleague’s baby and changing her name to “LN” from “Ellen”, probably because she decided the letter E was somehow a tool of the patriarchy. I subsequently read that Toni Collette was originally supposed to have that role, which would have been hysterical because LN is essentially Miss Granola Suicide And Her Spawn from About A Boy (minus the suicide and yeti costume). You breathe a sigh of relief when Burt and Verona end up in Montreal to visit friends from college and fall in love with their happy family comprised of innumerable adopted kids, only of course we later find out that the mom has had FIVE miscarriages and apparently deals with it by participating in amateur night at the local strip club. Um, no.
- Speaking of which, is “Oh! Sweet Nuthin’” by the Velvet Underground really music to strip to? I’m just wondering.
- You know how actors are always saying in interviews how desperate they are to work with such and such a director that they’ll take any role in any of their upcoming films, no matter how small? The casting of the supporting roles in this movie feels like that, although I’m having an incredibly hard time wrapping my head around what could possibly be the obviously huge desire to work with Sam Mendes. Although I think this movie is an improvement on his last outing, the overly serious Revolutionary Road, you’re kind of left wondering what the big deal is. I think I also feel this way about Ridley Scott. I bet being married to Kate Winslet makes Sam Mendes feel impervious to criticism. I certainly wouldn’t care if people thought I was a hack if I were married to her.
- I ♥ John Krasinski.
- I do believe that Verona was given the occupation of “medical textbook artist” if only so that they could use the line “I just turned this guy’s brain into a vulva”. If I were writing a script, that is exactly what I would do.
Away We Go
I bet being married to Kate Winslet makes Sam Mendes feel impervious to criticism.
IMDB Plot Synopsis 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.