Review of Away We Go (2009) by Elysia — 24 Sep 2010

This is a film about finding a home and creating a family so I was bound to enjoy it. Usually I am partial stories about people creating families in the post modern sense -unrelated misfits coming together with common ground and mutual acceptance. This is about creating a family the old school way, a man and a woman being in love and getting knocked up and, in spite of being hip sort of arty young adults, they are certainly from a mainstream conservative core learning what to do and not do from a series of families that are in one way or another 'other'.

We sympathise with them, hope for them and worry with them as they discover that there are desirable and undesirable things about all created families. They are required to be relatable, personable, lovable centre for the road movie to parenthood and they fulfil that role very well. If you're a sentimental sort it's fun to watch them watch each other decide what sort of family they are destined to become, if you're not there is plenty of incidental humour and drama to keep you following the journey.

The fact remains that they are very traditionally, conservatively 'normal'. In one way or another they are differentiated from the other families because they are committed to and love each other, the concieved their child in the usual way, and they are committed to making a life together as a family all the while not having any remotely extreme or unconvential ideas about parenting. Not that there's anything wrong with that, being normal I mean, but it does occasionally feel a bit like a film to make the status quo feel good about being the status quo.

The heart of the film for me came from the peripheral character performed by Melanie Lynskey whose family at first seems like exactly what the lead couple desire. The sadness, longing, love and heartbreak in her performance gave me insight into something I have never experienced and have always found difficult to understand on paper. Taking up very little screen time this chapter added dramatic depth to the film that I had not expected.

In the end it is a film about going home as much as it is about finding a home. the message seems to be that the only way to create something authentic is by drawing from what you already have and know. So in spite of my comments about them being a sort of 'middle ground' inoffensive couple, the final message has resonance for anybody. Becoming adult and making a family, can't be learned entirely from how others are doing it, the heart of it comes from who you already are.