I'm going to introduce you to a different kind of film. This isn't an action film, no sci-fi in it, but I really enjoyed "Away We Go." Now, you watch the trailer and you'll say, "hmmm - John Krasinski aka Jim of The Office and his pregnant girlfriend played by Maya Rudolph from Saturday Night Live - ahhhh, no thanks. Chick flick."
Well you'd be missing a good flick. This film has a great plot, although it's not clear from the trailer. The two thirty-somethings realize that they want to find a good place to live to raise the kid, so they travel to visit family and friends in Colorado, Phoenix, Tucson, Montreal, Madison, and Miami to see what they like. Both John and Maya have great roles - they're complex characters who are struggling to understand what the future holds.
The people they meet are equally diverse and complex. Catherine O'Hara and Jeff Daniels play John's parents, who have just decided to move to Belgium, even though their grandkid is on the way. Maya's sister provides some family background before they move on. Allison Janey and Jim Gaffigan are old business friends who have a pair of weird kids and a really bizarre sense of humor. "Hey Lowell! Didn't I have great jugs?" she says.
Maggie Gyllenhaal has an equally great character role, as an old family friend and professor whose child-rearing habits are... unusual. Very bohemian in a way. Their Montreal friends are the opposite - they're very normal and fun-loving, and adopting kids instead of raising them. The two wanderers finally figure it all out, but it is an honestly entertaining and lively film. If you're looking for a good, mature film with which to spend some quality time with the spouse, this is it. Go see it.
Comments