Writer: Dave Eggers & Vendela Vida
Runtime: 98 min
By all accounts, this is a charming little movie. Only, one could say it's not exactly a little movie. I was highly surprised when I first saw the trailer of this film. It was clearly pulling directly from the Juno aesthetic, the "indie film that could". John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph, and Dave Eggers score major nerd points, but then at the end I noticed a fairly inconspicuous little note: "Directed by Sam Mendes". Sam Mendes?! As in, Revolutionary Road? American Beauty? Jarhead? Road to Perdition? Was this a direct attempt by a major studio to copy the indie feel, enlist some of the hottest names on the market, and sign one of the biggest names in directing to try and pull the wool over our eyes?
Who knows what the real story is. It worked. Of course I immediately wanted to see the film. Check out the trailer for yourself, it's chock full of little quips and quirks, and no matter how much you can pinpoint, "Hey, they are deliberately trying to do something here..." in the end, it makes for an intriguing concept:
The basic storyline goes: Burt (Krasinski) and Verona (Rudolph) are expecting a child, living in a run down home in a quiet rural area near Burt's parents, who have told them they are excited to help raise the baby. Only his parents decide last minute that they are going to move to Belgium, and feeling abandoned, Burt and Verona decide to go on a tour of the continent, visiting friends and family in an attempt to find the place where "they belong". Each one of these voyages is accompanied in the film by a title slide stating "AWAY TO ______", so you are certain not to miss it.
The movie's got a pretty solid if expected mix of comedy and drama. It's fairly weighty. They're expecting a baby but Verona doesn't want to get married. They are in flux with their professional careers. Verona's parents are dead. Burt longs to give his child everything she could ever need. Their friends are a special mix of caring, supportive, psychotic, out of touch, and depressed. But the comedy nonetheless chugs along. There are an enormous amount of cameos, most of them of a comedic nature--Jim Gaffigan, Allison Janney, Catherine O'Hara, Jeff Daniels, Maggie Gyllenhaal. But personally I feel like the best side characters were the serious ones, played by two actors who fly a lot lower under the radar than the names above, Chris Messina and Melanie Lynskey. They were absolutely terrific. Round, fully developed characters, with likable personalities, even though they only spend about 10 minutes in the story. And it's their introduction that is the start for the film's emotional turn, shifting away from the slapstick and cardboard and towards a wholesome, cathartic conclusion.
My favorite part of the movie is that the writers don't make the assumption that you, as the viewer, are seeing the ONE time these two characters will ever have a specific type of conversation. For instance, when Verona complains that she is fat and will be ugly for the rest of her life, Burt tries to assuage her concern with a little bit of humor. "I will always love you," he says, "even if it takes you years to lose this weight." Then he goes on to say some more vulgar things, but sometimes as viewers you might be prone to thinking, "Wow, what a jerk he is to not take this as seriously as she is." But in reality, she's pregnant. She's in her early 30s. They are a couple, this is not the first nor last time they'll ever have that type of conversation. And when you love someone and you have the same conversation 5, 6, 10, 20 times, you can't always be as serious about it as you would be if it was just that ONE time. They did a fantastic job with this concept throughout the film. It was a refreshing slice of reality. A film is a story of two hours in the lives of these people who have been together for years. Yes, they are two important hours, but they have already talked about everything before, and I appreciate the respect they showed the audience by not slopping on the gravitas.
See it. I don't think you'll be disappointed.
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