Away We Go (2009)
Away We Go(USA) Directed by Sam Mendes. Written by Dave Eggers; Vendela Vida. Starring John Krasinksi; Maya Rudolph; Allison Janney; Jim Gaffigan; Catherine O’Hara; Jeff Daniels; Maggie Gyllenhall; Josh Hamilton; Jeff Daniels; Carmen Ejogo; Chris Messina; Paul Schneider; Melanie Lynsky
British citizen and life long resident, Sam Mendes, has firmly set himself up as a commentator on American Society. One wonders if it’s his decade long part-time residency in New York that qualifies him to dissect a country so outside the purview of his own experience, or perhaps he has some innate outsiders understanding of what makes us tick? Perhaps the issue isn’t so much a debate over his legitimate personal connection to and/or knowledge of this country, rather, the ineptitude from an artistic standpoint that he displays in attempting to illuminate our failings. It has reached a point where it would be nice if Mr. Mendes decided to leave American film audiences alone for awhile, and perhaps return to British theater. Though it might sound like a novel idea, he might even discover at least one story worth filming about the country where he was born and raised, and aim his critical, unsparing eye there.
Unsurprisingly, his latest smugly self-satisfied effort Away We Go (like American Beauty and Revolutionary Road) has all the subtlety of a hammer strike and provides further (some might say, definitive) evidence that Kate Winslet’s husband might be better suited for another art form. Again, Mendes assembles a group of fantastic actors, but so dedicated is he to eviscerating American society that he fails to recognize the one thing that may have saved this film - humanity. Perhaps, because he didn’t write the script, Mendes deserves only a share of the responsibility for this (and his other efforts), but he is still the one choosing what materiel he gets involved with, and is directly responsible for the tone of everything he helms. Tone in film is sometimes everything, and Mendes consistently opts for a kind of self-important, birds-eye view, a perspective seemingly dedicated to unveiling the pettiness, selfishness, and stupidity of the human beings (if one could call them that) populating his films.
Here, Mendes once again sneers at Americans by showing us all what a bunch of selfish, stupid, provincial fools we are, making grotesques out of nearly every character we come in contact with. The lead characters, thirty-somethings Burt (John Krasinki) and Verona (Maya Rudolph) probably fare the best, though mostly because they admit to not knowing what they are doing, and therefore gain our sympathy; however, there is something off about their embarrassed reactions to the contemptible or pitiable individuals they come in contact with beyond the humorous dead pans, a lack of believable involvement or empathy maybe (particularly toward those who might deserve better), that eventually accumulates into something akin to self-righteousness. It is not a stretch to believe that throughout the film Ben and Verona are thinking “just look at how horrible everyone we know is,” and, “aren’t we so much better?”. Nevertheless, everyone around them is so patently and absurdly horrible and pathetic that they can’t help but stand out by comparison. Written by Dave Eggers (literary journal McSweeney’s creator, and author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius),and his wife Vendela Vida, Away We Go does have several funny moments, as well as a slew of (too many) typically “quirky” indie characters, and a healthy dose of condescension.
The story has Ben, an insurance futures salesperson, and Verona, an illustrator, living in Colorado in an undersized trailer home. The amusing opening scene has Ben discovering there is something “different” about Verona while engaged in sexual activity. We learn that Verona is pregnant, and immediately Ben and Verona begin to speculate on what kind of parents they will make, worrying they are woefully under- prepared for the task at hand. Verona wonders out loud if they are, indeed, “fuck-ups,” an endearing, seemingly self-deprecating question, although one wonders about how much irony is intended in any of the lines of this type either of these two speak. The cutesy verbal-isms in the dialogue, their jokey fake fights, the cardboard window and bad heat in their claustrophobic home, their carefully measured hipster clothes, and Ben’s preoccupation with whittling (he calls is “cobbling”) all seem to point to a kind of self-conscience, ironic opt-out as opposed to actual challenging circumstances and/or actual conflict. Despite Ben’s goofy irresponsibility and Verona’s refusal to marry (because her dead parents won’t be able to attend the wedding - what?) is there ever a doubt these two are meant for another and they will eventually be fine?
Ben’s “quirky” parents Jerry (Jeff Daniels) and Gloria (Catherine O’Hara), live nearby, but prove to be of little assistance, and worse, disclose that they are renting their house and moving out of the country before the baby is to be born. This leads Ben and Verona toward a decision to do some traveling to help them to decide where it is they will live and raise their child. With Verona 6 months gone, they proceed to traipse across the country (clearly they had a little socked away in the bank) by train, plane, and automobile, a journey that feels neither as fun nor as important as it probably should. Ultimately, though the film purports to be about accepting responsibility and growing up, the message seems to be that the answer really is to try to escape from a crass, poisonous society, which can only corrupt people like Ben and Verona, who are clearly better than anyone else in their circle.
With the exception of a job interview Ben attends (that we don’t actually see), their trip basically involves visits with family and friends, and for the most part what we encounter is a lot of “quirky,” messed up, unhappy people with bad parenting skills. Along the way the couple visits Verona’s crazy former boss Lily (Allison Janney) and her weird, paranoid husband Lowell (Jim Gaffigan) and their overweight kids in Phoenix; Verona’s sister Grace (Carmen Ejogo), who envies her relationship with Ben, in Tuscon; their married college friends Munchie (Melanie Lynskey) and Tom (Chris Messina), who have a houseful of adopted kids of different races but cannot conceive themselves, in Montreal; Ben’s brother Courtney (Paul Schneider) (and his daughter), who is confused and depressed because his wife has just left him, in Miami; and Ben’s longtime friend Ellen or “LN” (Maggie Gyllenhall), an out of control hippie university professor who breast feeds her four year old and sleeps in a huge family bed with her kids and equally pretentious new age husband Roderick (Josh Hamilton), in Madison WI.
Mendes is clearly attempting to co-opt an indie sensibility here, and the film has shades of a more grown-up Garden State, sans the charm, wit, and hopefulness of course, right down to the Alexi Murdoch dominated melodic soundtrack. Unlike Mendes’ equally pretentious previous work there are no gorgeous visuals and set design to distract us (the film is ably shot by Ellen Kuras), and to make matters worse Away We Gois also poorly paced (though only 98 minutes it feels twice that long). Reasonable performances by the leads, and a few funny bits (the opening bedroom oral scene; Maggie Gyllenhall’s over the top hippie LN; Jim Gaffigan’s weird Lowell), do not save this contrived, cynical mess. The film travels from Colorado to Arizona to Montreal to Wisconsin to Miami (and parts in between), but we never really go anywhere.