Movie Review: Away We Go

The couple here are young and naive with a baby on the way who for the first time find themselves wondering about where they fit in the world and what they'll be like as parents. They're hopeful, but you can see the fear plastered on their face. John Krasinski (The Office) and Maya Rudolph (Saturday Night Live) play Burt and Verona, a mid-thirties boyfriend-girlfriend (Verona has a marriage issue) who get the shock of their lives when Verona gets pregnant. Not only that but any connection they have in their little Connecticut town are about to be uprooted because Burt's parents (a funny Jeff Daniels and Catherine O'Hara) are moving to Belgium a month before the baby is born. Having no reason to stay where they are, they pack up and take a road trip, stopping anywhere they know they might find a familiar face. Phoenix, Tucson, Madison, Montreal, and Miami are all visited for a short time as they try and figure out who and what they would like to raise their family around.

There are a lot of real odd characters in this film. Allison Janney is the funniest of them playing Verona's former boss Lily, an abrasive alcoholic who enjoys point-blank degrading her children and her crazy, paranoid husband. Maggie Gyllenhaal also shows up later on as Burt's zen-like cousin who takes family closeness to a whole new creepy level.

This isn't a perfect film... and it has a few unanswered questions... but I recommend it a a quiet and gentle movie and worth seeing by thinking people. I give it 4.5 stars.