Judgmental journey

Indie-ish road trip flick Away We Go is more
mean than meaningful

CLOYING COUPLE: John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph

by MARK SLUTSKY

I’m getting tired of movies about glum, educated adults with exquisitely precious tastes in art and music and serious cases of arrested development looking for meaning in a tragically beautiful and absurd world. The worst of these is probably Zach Braff’s 2004 hit Garden State, but the latest entry in the canon is Away We Go, a movie with a pedigree that will probably instantly make you want to love it or hate it, or maybe a little of both.

Written by our generation’s literary super-couple, Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida (she the editor of The Believer), Away We Go is directed by Sam Mendes and stars John Krasinski (Jim from The Office) and Maya Rudolph (Saturday Night Live). They play a slacker-ish pair in their early-to-mid-30s who live in a heap out in the woods, presumably to be nearer to Krasinski’s parents (Catherine O’Hara and Jeff Daniels). Rudolph is heavy with child, and when the soon-to-be-grandparents announce that they’re moving to Belgium for two years, our heroes decide to criss-cross the country to find a better home for their new family.

I found the idea of an adult couple so put out by the fact that the in-laws are moving away for a little while hard to swallow—and they really do seem pissed off about it, despite not seeming to even like them. Still, they head to Phoenix, Madison, Miami and—yes—Montreal (though it looks nothing like it), hanging with old friends played by the likes of Allison Janney, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Jim Gaffigan and trying to figure out where to build a new home.

This might have been kind of sweet, and the movie’s indie-ish aesthetic is sort of lovably homemade-feeling and cozy, but there’s an abrupt disconnect in the way the film treats its secondary characters. With a few exceptions, they’re painted as tacky, selfish and unhappy.

There’s something mean about the way we’re meant to side with Krasinski and Rudolph in the entitled way they judge their friends’ failures. Now, I like these two. They’re likeable, funny performers. But they belong in something better, a movie that actually is generous towards its characters instead of just faking an innocent soulfulness.

AWAY WE GO OPENS THIS FRIDAY,
JUNE 12