Another movie in the can. Once the kids went to sleep on a quiet Friday night, we sat down to eat some Pappa John’s pizza, and watch our latest Netflix movie, Away We Go. It’s a 2009 Sam Mendes movie starring John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph, with respected supporting actors/actresses like Catherine O’Hara, Jeff Daniels, Allison Janney, and Maggie Gyllenhaal.
The premise of the story is that Krasinski and Rudolph are a couple who are about 6-months pregnant. Living near Krasinski’s character’s parents, they originally planned to have his family nearby to help. Turns out, the parents are soon moving to Belgium long term. Our intrepid couple heads out to visit various family and friends around the USA and Canada, in order to find a suitable home where suitable locale with family/friends that would be best for their future daughter. They end up travelling from place to place, finding these various people to be odd, or off their rocker, or whatever, unable to find the perfect spot.
I don’t think this was the best movie, per se. It was a decent rental. I liked Krasinkski and Rudolph in these roles, and I personally liked the characters they played. They didn’t have much, but they were two likeable people in love, surrounded by a sea of nutjobs. I could relate to them, even though they had “cardboard windows.” They were both approx 33 years old, deeply in love, and not exactly at the pinnacle of wealth and power. I’m 33, deeply in love with my wife, and not exactly rich and powerful. We don’t have the perfect life. In the movie, they don’t have a particularly perfect life, and openly question, “Are we fuck-ups?” Hey, when you’re at this stage in your life, and you didn’t have the “perfect” life, you’d wonder if you were a fuck-up at times too.
In addition, the supporting actors/actresses establish those characters very well. I will say that I could have done without the folksy, earnest soundtrack, which is starting to get cliched in some of these indie movies.
So final assessment — it’s a decent rental.
Away We Go (2009)