Review of Away We Go (2009) by Kevin D — 20 Apr 2010

This movie was extremely boring. I had to force myself to watch the whole thing. Absolutely all opportunities of trying to be interesting were robbed from this movie, other than the section that took place in Montreal.

I couldn't have cared less about the characters in this movie. I felt so distanced from them. It's really hard to root for a bunch of yuppies. The John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph characters were truly amazing (I'm eing sarcastic, you'll see).

They must have been crazy rich or they must have had great bosses. They were allowed to travel across the country for 3 months straight. They somehow had enough money to fly on planes, travel on trains, pay for gas, stay in hotels, eat food, and go clubbing.

I found that to be simply astounding. It's not like they were millionaires either. I wish I knew some sort of career that would pay me money while I traveled the country looking for a place to raise my family.

There was no plot to this movie, it was just a collection of boring vignettes (remember except for the Montreal part, that part was good). With me mentioning the word "vignette", the words "annoying caricatures" should pop up in your head.

Allison Janney played the loud and embarrassing woman you have no idea how you became friends with. If it was her goal to annoy the audience as much as possible then she succeeded. Maggie Gyllenhaal played another annoying caricature here.

She played a hippie to the extreme. Also, her character and her "lover" were just ripoffs of those "Lover" characters Will Ferrell and Rachel Dratch used to play on SNL (remember the couple that was in the hot tub that awkward and very open affection for each other.

). Gyllenhaal and her boyfriend delivered terrible performances and their impressions of Ferrell and Dratch were downright offensive to me, a big fan of SNL, and just embarrassing to watch. There was a stupid plot hole in this movie.

Half way through the movie Krasinski and Rudolph were denied from flying on a plane because she was over 8 months pregnant and didn't have a doctor's note to fly, so they ended up taking a train to their next destination.

Guess what? Later on in the film guess who ended up taking a flight after she was 8 months pregnant without a doctor's note. That's right, Maya Rudolph. I bet the writers forgot about that because they were too busy trying to make their dialogue and characters really boring.

Krasinski and Rudolph were okay here. Their acting wasn't anything special, but it's not like they made the film bad. It was doomed from the beginning because it was not interesting and lacked a conflict.

To be honest, the main thing I noticed about Maya Rudolph throughout this movie was that she looks like Pam Grier. The only good things I can say about this movie were that the part that took place in Montreal was really good and that it reminded me why I never want to get married and why having kids is such a terrible idea.

However, I did not need to watch this movie to figure that stuff out. Hey, at least this movie showed all of the sides of having kids and marriage. I just wished this movie could have been slightly entertaining.

Also I was disappointed by the director Sam Mendes. His debut film, American Beauty, is one of my all time favorites but everything else I've seen from him has been boring (this movie and Jarhead).

I heard that Revolutionary Road is just Leo and Kate Winslet screaming at each other for 2 hours so that doesn't sound appealing. It looks like my last hope for a good Mendes flick is Road to Perdition, with Paul Newman and Tom Hanks.

The main point is do not watch this movie. It'll just result in mind-numbing boredom.