Away We Go
Directed by Sam Mendes. Written by Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida. With John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph, Carmen Ejogo, Catherine O'Hara, Jeff Daniels, Allison Janney, Jim Gaffigan, and Maggie Gyllenhaal. (R)
Being a movie critic engenders a certain amount of cynicism; it's a professional hazard, the way sore thumbs follow lazy carpenters. Confronted with a film like Away We Go—with its adorably lo-fi poster, its two stars drawn from television comedies, its script co-written by an ironist once called "the J.D. Salinger of Generation X"—the first response is to dismiss it as a wish-fulfillment relationship story for thirty-something M.F.A grads. That turns out to be true more often than not, but it's also filled with laughter and tears and the small, ridiculous things that make the best relationships what they are. And unlike most of its ilk, it rings touchingly, tenderly true.
Its stars are John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph of television's The Office and Saturday Night Live, respectively. They play Burt and Verona, a couple expecting their first child in a few months, whose sole support system—Burt's parents, played with hilarious self-absorption by Jeff Daniels and Catherine O'Hara—is decamping to Holland a month before their grandchild's due date. Without family tying them to the area—we learn more about Verona's parents later—they embark on a cross-country journey to visit friends and decide where to settle down.
Verona is afraid the couple might be somewhat stunted—"we have a cardboard window," she notes—and maybe not quite ready to raise their unexpected child. She shouldn't worry, judging by the parade of parents the pair encounter over the course of their journey. In Phoenix, they meet up with Lily and Lowell (Allison Janney and Jim Gaffigan), a brassy and boozy pair whose idea of parental oversight is to take their kids with them to the dog track. In Wisconsin, they run afoul of a New Age college professor and her smug, witless husband. Visiting old friends in Montreal, they witness the highs and lows of parenthood, and in the film's most wrenching scene—one involving, improbably, a stripper pole—they get a glimpse of the sadness of displaced dreams.
Through it all, the soundtrack is ever-present. Provided by indie songwriter Alexi Murdoch, it feels as if it were pulled straight from Burt and Verona's iPods. Earnest, quiet and searching, Murdoch's music is just right for the story and the characters that inhabit it. It's also a reminder of how powerful a single musical voice can be in a film; we've grown used to the wide palette of orchestras and their capacity for everything from hush to bombast. Here the music recalls the unifying feel of Cat Stevens' soundtrack for Harold and Maude—intimate, meaningful, and specially chosen for those particular people.
As those particular people, Krasinski and Rudolph are a touching couple, endearingly, believably goofy, neither glamorous nor hopeless as long as they have each other. Their world is a world filled with the private jokes and silent messages of raised eyebrows and twitching lips, the us-against-the-world mentality of true love, and the acceptance of imperfection that is so necessary in any grand-scale coupling.
I haven't yet mentioned the director of Away We Go: Sam Mendes, the man behind films like American Beauty and Revolutionary Road. It's not meant to be a slight; part of Mendes' skill as a director is his ability to hide himself and let his images do their work. When his signature shows, it's often as an unexpected flourish; that strip club scene, more than anything, calls to mind the infamous shot in American Beauty of a plastic grocery bag being carried by the wind. Disarmingly simple, quiet and full of a shattered peace.
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Also this week: The Northampton Committee to Stop the War in Iraq continues its free film series this Friday night at the Media Education Foundation. Though the group's rather lengthy moniker might call to mind an unyielding stream of anti-war fare, their outlook is more global, and more focused on the future, than their name suggests. In addition to work specifically about the current conflict in Iraq, past films have covered everything from Nixon's vendetta against John Lennon to the use of Vipassana meditation as a therapeutic technique in prisons. Their end goal, it seems, is less about stopping this particular war than shining a light on the many reasons we enter into such conflicts—and how we can avoid doing it again.
This week they screen Flow, Irena Salina's investigative documentary about the planet's growing water crisis. Once the realm of science fiction—see cult classic Ice Pirates, where fresh water is the most valuable substance in the galaxy—our thirsty ways and government greed have led us to the edge of a drying pool. Not simply an environmental problem, the water crisis is largely driven by money, and as the world's dwindling supply of fresh water is increasingly privatized, Salina's film circles the question at the heart of the matter: "Can anyone," she asks, "really own water?"
To arrive at an answer, the film interviews activists and scientists involved with the problem (and some of the possible solutions), and identifies many of the big business and governmental bodies that are behind the water grab. Imagine Chinatown, Polanski's masterpiece inspired by the Los Angeles water rights disputes of the early 20th century, played out on a global scale. Now hope for a happier ending.
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The Third Annual Ashfield FilmFest doesn't hit that sleepy village until September, but budding filmmakers are advised to get in on the action soon. The call for entries ends on the last day of August, and while there are certain guidelines that hopeful directors must adhere to (see below), perhaps the most interesting is this: all films entered for consideration must come in at under five minutes, including any title and credit sequences. In an era when increasingly gratuitous credit rolls (do we really need to know who catered the Transformers set?) commonly run 10 minutes on their own, this is something to be celebrated.
While the finer points are available on the festival Web site (www.ashfieldfilmfest.org), these are the broad strokes: anyone can enter, but films must have some connection to the town of Ashfield; "connection" is defined here as anything from using actors that are Ashfield residents to including dialogue or plots that refer to the town; filming in town also qualifies. All entries must be submitted in a DVD format, and must be suitable for general audiences. (The Great Ashfield Slasher Film will have to wait.)
Though the FilmFest began as a way to honor Cecil B. DeMille—the legendary director was born in Ashfield—its current Hollywood connection comes via festival chairman Harry Keramidas, Ashfield resident and editor of dozens of Hollywood films, notably the Back to The Future series. An interview with Keramidas will appear in the coming weeks.
