Away We Go

Sam Mendes knows how to reach past the surface and really get at what makes characters tick, what in their life has led to them to this current point in which his film captures. This skill along with a script from real life couple Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida allows this movie to provide a closer than normal portrait of a couple that is not only in love and dealing with things they had not planned, but a couple that is honest and relatable-they are with one another because they want to be, not because it is written that way. The two leads only enhance this film, John Krasinski, finally making a film that is up to the standards everyone imagined he could act in, while it is just nice to finally see Maya Rudolph getting the chance she deserves at a lead role in a film that if not getting the widest theatrical release, at least is highly praised on the festival circuit. Mendes has put together an impressive supporting cast as well, Allison Janney is hilarious as this awful character that is married to the criminally underused Jim Gaffigan. As Krasinski and Rudolph's characters travel the country searching for a place to call home, it becomes apparent Mendes and the script is not only telling a story about this couple, but of the life they are heading into as well as some of the obstacles that not only they will face in life, but that the audience has also been through and how the people you meet along the way shape the kind of person you are. In a great monologue given by Chris Messina near the end of the film he expresses how the challenges not only of children, but all of it combined with being a husband, supporting his wife and kids and still having a sense of self is something you never thought you could handle, that all of it makes you so much more than you ever thought you could be. That is essentially what the movie is about, not just a couple expecting their first child or trying to find a place to live, but making the best life they can with what they have. It is a truly touching story.