Hey, folks. Capone in Chicago here.

Sometimes a film just speaks right into your ear with such a perfect tone that its impact permeates your entire mind, body and soul. I've now seen director Sam Mendes' largely under-the-radar latest work Away We Go twice, and both times it made me laugh and feel deeply for the early-30s couple at the heart of this beautiful and modest work from a man who has spent a great deal of his film career dissecting (perhaps "eviscerating" is the better word) the suburban lifestyle in works such as AMERICAN BEAUTY and REVOLUTIONARY ROAD. The film feels almost too personal thanks entirely to an almost unfairly perfect script from novelist Dave Eggers (who also wrote the upcoming WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE adaptation with Spike Jonze) and wife Vendela Vida. As much as I give full credit to the writers, the warmth and the endearment comes from Mendes' closeness to the material. I came away from this film believing that he cared more about these characters than he has from those in his other works, and shockingly enough, so did I.

And while I'm sure that there have been thousands of films over the years featuring couples in their 30s having kids, AWAY WE GO feels like the definitive cinematic statement on a generation that has decided not to follow in their parents' or grandparents' footsteps and have children immediately after high school or college (such as the couple in REVOLUTIONARY ROAD) for the plain and simple reason that they don't believe they've figured their shit out enough to start a family. A lot of people have already pointed to the scene in the film where Verona (the absolutely perfect Maya Rudolph, basically reintroducing herself to the world as a major acting force) asks her longtime companion Burt ("The Office's" John Krasinski, utterly disguised behind giant glasses and a shaggy beard) if they are "fuck-ups" (or "screw-ups" in the trailer). That's the essence and the jumping-off point of the film and this couple's journey to discover the North American dream. In the end, AWAY WE GO is not a movie about two unmarried people (Verona doesn't see the point in marriage) expecting a child; it's a film about looking for a home.

Burt and Verona live in a shitty little trailer in some desolate corner of Colorado (although I'm not sure the location is ever specifically mentioned) to be close to Burt's flaky parents (Catherine O'Hara and Jeff Daniels), who announce over dinner one night that they are going to realize their longtime ambition to move to Belgium--one month before the baby is due (Verona is six months pregnant at this point). Shocked by Burt's parents' complete selfishness in their time of need, the couple decides they officially have no ties to this hole of an existence and set off on a quick tour of cities in the U.S. (and one in Canada) where they have friends or acquaintances that they might be able to lean on for help as they raise their first child. They don't know exactly what they're looking for, but we get a sense that they (and we) will know it when we get there. Along their journey, we gain little bits of insight into their dynamic and discover some truly remarkable things about Burt and Verona--they seem to get better as an unmarried unit the tougher and scarier things get in their world; instead of long, drawn-out conversations about life, they have short, to-the-point discussions that incorporate a shorthand that every couple develops over time; and they take away examples of what to do (more often, what not to do) from every encounter they have with other parents.

I'm not going to go through the film city by city, but we do get to meet some truly remarkable and terrifying people along the way. The households of both Alison Janney (playing an old work friend of Verona's) and Maggie Gyllenhaal (as a childhood friend of Burt's) are both borderline cliché, but Mendes keeps the proceedings reeled in just enough to make them believable enough to be scarily accurate. Both sequences are a scream, and they leave our young heroes more confused than when they arrived. I do want to talk a bit about the segment set in Montreal, where they visit a couple (Chris Messina and Melanie Lynskey) they knew in college, who have one of the most well-adjusted melting pots of adopted children you will ever see on screen. They watch THE SOUND OF MUSIC as a group, but turn the film off before the Nazis enter the picture. They sound overprotective, but it's nobler than that. And just as Burt and Verona think they've found their home, the true nature of this relationship reveals itself. It's a move that is so subtle, you almost miss it; but once you realize what's going on, it stings.

An unplanned trip to Miami to see Burt's brother (Paul Schneider) interrupts Montreal, and the news in Florida isn't much better. His wife has left him and his daughter unexpectedly, and he's emotionally traumatized, more for his daughter than for himself. The segment provides an unexpected level of clarity for both us and Burt and Verona, and sets up a final decision that seems both inevitable and unexpected. During the course of AWAY WE GO, we don't just get to know this couple; we feel like we've taken the first step to becoming their friends. I think that's accurate, since we leave them wanting the best for them and their unborn child. Above all, we want them to be great parents. We've watched them struggle and prevail (sort of), and we'd like to see them again, maybe five years down the road. Will they become their parents or their obnoxious friends? I hope not, but I'd sure like to find out. There's a sequence toward the end of the film involving Burt and Verona lying down on a trampoline talking about all of the things they promise to do for each other and their child. If you can leave that sequence without your emotions being beautifully shattered, then you might be dead. And it's because of that scene that AWAY WE GO went from being a very good movie to a great movie, damn near perfect in my estimation, and certain the finest work Mendes has ever produced.

-- Capone
capone@aintitcoolmail.com