Dave Eggers may be the most important figure in contemporary
literature, if not for writing the stuff (which he’s awful at), then at
least for deciding on an annoying style (a combination of
children’s-book rhythms and 19th-century vocabulary used to tell
Raymond Carver-esque stories) that he’s pushed down America’s
collective throat with his McSweeney’s literary digest.
But he’s also notable for finding a way to make being literary cool
again, something each generation of self-involved hipsters must do for
itself. I mean, there’s nothing sadder than seeing a contemporary
college kid reading On the Road or some Kurt Vonnegut book and
thinking he’s actually in tune with the zeitgeist.
So due to Eggers’ style, I was a little frightened at the thought of
watching Away We Go, a film he wrote with his wife, Vendela
Vida. But I was pleasantly surprised by how enjoyable the film was.
It’s no masterpiece, and it aims far lower than it thinks it does, but
for all that, it’s passably decent.
John Krasinski of The Office and Maya Rudolph of Saturday
Night Live star as a young-to-middle-age couple having their first
child. There’s a lot to like about this pairing. Krasinski has shown
that he can play comedy without descending to shtick. He essentially
reprises his Office role here, playing a guy who’s too hip for
his job and lacks much motivation to do better. What makes it work is
that Krasinski is the master of “the look” that says far more than any
dialogue could.
While Krasinski’s performance is no surprise, Maya Rudolph’s is. For
the most part, SNL performers are atrocious actors. They tend to
be incredibly broad, which works in a 3-minute, 40-second sketch, but
can be grueling in longer works. Somehow, Rudolph escaped the
SNL curse and can actually act. In part, she plays the straight
woman, but her role is much deeper than that, and when asked to show
emotion, she presents a complex mixture of feelings in stark contrast
to her one-dimensional SNL cronies. There’s also something nice
about seeing a couple where the woman is older than the man, and she
doesn’t look like she just stepped out of a shampoo commercial.
The film starts in their dingy, unheated shack, where Rudolph, as
Verona, does freelance illustrations for medical textbooks, and
Krasinski, as Burt, is involved in insurance financing. In a scene in
which Burt practices a lingual art upon Verona, he comes to realize
that she is pregnant. Thus, in order to give the film a plot, they go
around the country seeking a place to settle with their soon-to-be
offspring.
This narrative structure is just a way for Eggers and Vida to
present a set of short stories. In Phoenix, they meet Verona’s old boss
Lily (Allison Janney) and Lily’s husband, Lowell (Jim Gaffigan), who
make uncomfortable, drunken comments and harass their children with
accusations of lesbianism and stupidity. The sequence is shallow and
goes for cheap laughs, but it gets those laughs, which is
something.
From Phoenix, they go to Tucson, then Madison, Wis., Montreal and
Miami, meeting a one-joke couple or friend at each location as they
decide whether these are people they’d want near their children. Except
for the Montreal sequence, where the script attempts a subtlety and
depth that’s way beyond its powers, the sequences mostly work, hitting
the romantic-comedy sweet spot with just enough laughter and sugar.
That’s the oddest thing about this movie: It has all the pretensions
of an indie film, and it’s penned by Serious Writers, but it’s really
just a well-done rom-com. I think Vida and Eggers thought they were
writing something artier, but the cheesy happy/sad ending and the
collection of stock scenarios is pure Hollywood. Still, it’s decently
amusing Hollywood, and while this isn’t the Oscar contender it thinks
it is, it’s a funny time at the movies.
The one thing it adds to the rom-com genre is the fact that the
couple is together at the start of the film, so we don’t have to
witness any wooing. In fact, it’s sort of like a sequel to a rom-com,
happening a few years later, but with the same stock characters: the
relatable male and female leads, their one-joke friends and their crazy
parents. Then, instead of watching the standard rom-com plot of
boy-meets-girl, boy-stalks-girl, boy-gets-girl, we just watch them
agonize over whether or not they’re too completely screwed up to raise
kids, and then they meet people who are clearly too screwed up to raise
kids, and those people have kids, so what the hell.
Director Sam Mendes does a good job coaxing interesting performances
out of most of his cast, and he smartly points the camera at a lot of
reacting faces instead of just aiming it at those who are speaking. The
cinematography is workmanlike, creating a straightforward,
information-first account. The downside is that the story and dialogue
get some eye rolls when the film attempts to get deep. But Krasinski
and Rudolph charm; supporters Janney and Maggie Gyllenhaal are
hilarious; and the script has enough laughs to see it almost through to
the end.
This article appears in Jun 25 – Jul 1, 2009.