You won't be disappointed!

Sadly Over-hyped

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

The story never gets interesting. John Krasinski is moderately funny but the story itself goes nowhere.

To me, an "indie" film is a movie with a budget under $10,000 and where the director's mom does all the catering. "Away We Go", with an internationally acclaimed director like Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Road to Perdition, Jarhead) and a budget of $17 million, doesn't exactly fit that description so you won't hear me calling it an "indie". What I will say is that it definitely departs from the standard Hollywood romcom formula which is a nice surprise.The standard Hollywood romcom formula goes something like: (1) boy meets girl, (2) they deny they're in love, (3) they admit they're in love, (4) they get into a fight and fall out of love, (5) they get back together in a big climactic weepy scene and live happily ever after. Well, "Away We Go" has absolutely none of the above. That itself should get your attention if you're looking for something different.So what's it about? It's about a man & woman in love who travel around the country looking for a place to call home. The drama & dynamics are not within their relationship, but instead they observe drama & dynamics (and quite often hysterics) from the couples they visit along the way. So essentially they are like us, the audience, impartial observers in a wacky story... except that the story happens all around them. It's a pretty novel approach to the romcom, more like a road movie than anything else, and yet it delves deeply into questions of love, marriage and relationships.In case you didn't know, Maya Rudolph's character is pregnant throughout the film and the themes focus heavily on children: how people raise them, how people FAIL at raising them, and how people try admirably in unlucky circumstances. But you don't have to be baby crazy to connect with this film. More than anything, it makes us analyze our own upbringing and how our parents' methods affected us.I sincerely hope none of you had it as bad as what we see in the movie. There's some pretty hilariously bad parenting going on here. And that's where the movie draws most of its comedy from. It's a very satirical film, light on punchlines but heavy on sarcasm. Most of the (bad) parents we see are caricatures of certain extremes: the negligent rich parents who are more interested in their home decorations than their children, the creepy midlife-crisis parents including the mother who is ready to have an affair with any man with a pulse, the hippy new age parents who share their bed (and evidently their nocturnal marital activities) with their children... yeah there's some hilariously creepy stuff here.But just when you start thinking this movie is a total absurdist comedy, it hits you with some very powerful, sobering moments. In particular, in the latter half there's a very sudden dark moment when we wake up and realize that relationships and parenting sometimes come with some heavy baggage. The scene begins with one of the mothers doing a pole dancing routine at a strip club amateur night (hilarious right?) but soon becomes one of the most darkly emotional moments in any romcom. That's when I made up my mind that I really liked this film.The scene I just mentioned featured a great song from The Velvet Underground "Oh! Sweet Nuthin" which earns it more bonus points. I've heard people rave about the soundtrack of "Away We Go" but honestly I didn't really notice anything exceptional until that scene. I later looked up the soundtrack and saw that all the songs are acoustic guitar pieces by Alexi Murdoch except 1 song by George Harrison ("What is life?"), one by The Stranglers ("Golden Brown") and of course the Velvet Underground tune. So basically if you like Alexi Murdoch you'll love the soundtrack.I would recommend this as a good date movie for a couple that's been together for a while and pondering the future together. It doesn't have the standard start-of-a-relationship drama that's prevalent in most romcoms, but instead it's more like what happens *after* the standard romcom stuff. Similar movies about the "2nd stage" of love include Miranda July's quirky "The Future" which centers around a young couple who is adopting a shelter cat, and for the slightly older late-30something crowd there's the underrated 90s gem by Billy Crystal "Forget Paris" which is almost like a sequel to "When Harry Met Sally". All of these non-formulaic romcoms are well worth checking out.

There is nothing I don't like about this movie. It's original, heartfelt, funny, and charming. It manages to make you laugh, cry, and feel completely satisfied.Away We Go is about Burt (John Krasinski) and Verona (Maya Rudolph), a quirky, 30-something couple who are expecting a child. The two are troubled over the fact they will have no extended family for their child when she is born, what with Verona's parents passing away while she was in college and Burt's jetting off Belgium for two years. Their inconsistent, freelance jobs allow them to travel around North America in search of a new home around family and friends. Throughout the film, Burt and Verona encounter good parents, bad parents, and crazy parents. Along with that, becoming is mother is making Verona truly face the grief she has over losing her parents a decade earlier.Krasinski and Rudolph have great chemistry, and I like the fact that the jokes are not based off gender differences, often used in romance comedies. The jokes are focused more on their or other characters' craziness or silliness. Either that, or the realistic funny situations they get themselves into. This movie is fantastic, and will leave you with a smile, perhaps even with a few tears. A must watch if you are expecting a child, or questioning parenting styles!

A young couple are a few months away from having their first child when Burt discovers that his parents are planning to move to Belgium a few weeks before the baby is due. Suddenly faced with the reality of having no family in the area and no reason to be there, he and his partner Verona head out on the road to visit various family and friends around the US and Canada to try and decide where best to settle to have their baby.With films like Revolutionary Road and Jarhead under his belt it was a real surprise to see English director Mendes suddenly making what appeared to be an indie-spirited comedy with two TV comedians in the lead roles. I was curious but bad reviews always seemed to keep it down my watch list until recently. The film generally does have a nice indie feel to it and the story is basically one of two characters discovering what is best of them in terms of their relationship and location (but mainly the former). They do this by encountering and rejecting the various lifestyles and parenting decisions of others who they visit. Whether it is their rather skittish parents, the blunt crudity of Phoenix, the annoyance of new spirituality, the sadness of others they go through the journey trying to find a "way" and a place that works for them. It is a nice film in this way and I did find it funny because the characters are mostly amusingly drawn, but it didn't work as well as I had hoped.Part of this is down to the main two characters. I like the two actors that played them but as "people" within the film they were not particularly good. They both came over as smug and superior to the others that they rejected and both the film and they themselves seemed unwilling to consider that actually everyone is annoying – but Bert yelling swearwords on a crowded train is presented as kooky and fun, whereas Lily doing it at a dog-track is crude and unbearable. This put me off them a little bit and it didn't help that neither of the two can do so much as lie in a bed without the film plastering a "Indie soundtrack 101" song all over the top of them. The use of music is poor – it is obvious and overused.As director Mendes does do a better job than I expected though – he handled the comedy well and he does get decent performances even if the material does guide him a way he either can't or doesn't want to, address. Likewise this applies to both Rudolph and Krasinski, I liked them both and they work well together but it is the material that makes them a little annoying rather than their performances. Daniels and O'Hara are good, Janney is wonderfully white-trash but it is really Gyllenhaal that stood out for me with her absurd and funny character. Also of note is Ejogo, who remains not only a stunning actress but also is well cast and convinces as Rudolph's sister.Away We Go is not a brilliant film but it is an OK one. It wears its indie spirit a bit too obviously and doesn't produce a consistent feel, but it has enough laughs and enough nice moments to get by. Those that generally dislike this sort of thing will be turned off by the approach though and even I found the constant and predictable soundtrack to be too much!