COMEDY; 1hr 28min
STARRING: John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph
Homeward bound — they hope: Krasinski and Rudolph
Imagine it: you’re 33 years old, possibly a confirmed loser, six months pregnant with your first child to a klutzy dreamer of a boyfriend whose parents (Jeff Daniels and Catherine O’Hara) are moving from Denver, Colorado, leaving you with no home ties there. So where will you live? If you’re Verona (Rudolph) and Burt (The Office’s Krasinski), you jet off to Phoenix, Arizona, on the first leg of a self-searching trip that takes you from Montreal to Miami while reconnecting you with friends and family — and with each other, in the fractious, closeted way that travel makes its own.
Director Sam Mendes did great things with blurred suburban lines in American Beauty. With Away We Go, he takes the vital cast of his human circus on the road; Allison Janney and Maggie Gyllenhaal are standouts as a blowsy loudmouth and a smug flake. It’s a patchwork picture of America’s middle class with the bottom line that everyone has cracks and fissures, no matter how seamless their surface. As the anchors of their domestic odyssey, Krasinski and Rudolph are likeable and fine — she especially has a cuddlesome, nurturing quality. And while there are no dizzying highs or lows, they’re easy fellow travellers to spend time with.
