Sam Mendes has made some of the more thought-provoking and visually creative films of the past 10 years. His 1999 debut, American Beauty, might be his best, as it ended up winning five Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director. His next outing was the excellent Road to Perdition, one of the best gangster movies of the decade. However, he lost some momentum with the slow-moving war film, Jarhead. Jarhead was boring at times and not on par with Beauty or Road. He got back some of that momentum with Revolutionary Road, which recently earned three Academy nominations. Like Sam Raimi with Drag Me to Hell, the other Sam (Mendes) is taking the low-key route and came up with Away We Go. Since it’s distributed by Focus Features, a division of Universal, it definitely has an indie/arty vibe to it.
"I don't think they're going to be impressed by this 99-cent store wine."
Away We Go follows Burt Farlander (John Krasinski, “The Office”) and Verona De Tessant (Maya Rudolph, “Saturday Night Live”), an unmarried couple who are expecting their first child. Both of them are in their early 30’s and still trying to find a purpose in life. When they decide to visit Burt’s parents Jerry and Gloria Farlander (Jeff Daniels and Katherine O’Hara), they receive the news that they’re moving to Belgium in June. Burt pleads to his parents that the baby is due in July and they’ll be far from their grandchild, but to no avail. Burt and Verona, both living in a trailer with cardboard windows, realize they won’t be close to any family since Burt’s parents are moving. They decide to leave their past existence behind and go on a road trip to find a better place to raise a family. On the road trip, they visit friends and extended family in hopes of finding a new home and purpose in life to raise their child.
Away We Go also co-stars Maggie Gyllenhaal as LN, Burt’s cousin and Alison Janney as Lily, Verona’s friend. Mentioned before, Away We Go is directed by Sam Mendes and this will be his fifth feature. David Eggers and Vendela Vida wrote the screenplay and this will be both their first feature. Eggers is also co-writing the adapted script for the upcoming Where The Wild Things Are.
"Having a kid is great as long as you're okay with dedicating your life to being awake, wiping poop and washing clothes."
Away We Go is the smallest film for Mendes to-date. His involvement should award greater exposure to the film, but at the moment it’s just flying under the radar. It does have a summer release, however, so I’m sure buzz around it will ramp up a bit toward the release date. It looks like a well-constructed film and it has potential to be a bit of a date movie. It remains to be seen if Mendes will embrace smaller-scale filmmaking or return to awards-bait in the future.
Away We Go opens June 6th.
