AWAY WE GO
By: Amy Nicholson
This modern parable about a hipster Joseph and Mary sounds glib, but director Sam Mendes lets it breathe, restraining himself from lacquering on symbolic visuals and character constraints. Instead, though the structure—a sort of ghosts-of-families-future parade—is determined, the tone is kept as loose and uncertain as the couple itself. Krasinski and Rudolph have a lovely gravity to their relationship, and a comfortable willingness to throw hard questions at each other that everyone thinks but few say aloud. At stake is the question of what makes a family, and much of what they find isn’t pretty. Friends Lily and Lowell (Allison Janney and Jim Gaffigan) are sour jerks, Verona’s sister Ashley (Samantha Pryor) is adrift; cousin LN (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and her husband (Josh Hamilton) are smotheringly free-spirited, and Burt’s brother Courtney (Paul Schneider) has just been left by his wife. Even picture-perfect parents Tom and Munch (Chris Messina and Melanie Lynskey) have their own troubles, and the scene where we realize the sad depth of them is at once painful and beautiful; an honest acknowledgment that nothing is ideal. That’s the human truth of this very human movie—one we hear echoed at the end when Burt gushes that they’ve found their dream home and Verona musters only, “I hope so. I really fucking hope so.”
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