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I’ve often said that we need fewer movies in which people fall in love and more in which we are introduced to characters already entrenched in devoted, complimentary relationships. Where is the movie that picks up after the romantic comedy ends? Away We Go is that movie, a beguiling dramedy both euphoric and heartbreaking. It’s been a long time since I’ve genuinely not wanted a film to end. For me, Away We Go is the year’s first contender for Best Picture.

British director Sam Mendes has made a career out of examining what makes the American family tick. Sometimes he pulls it off as in the haunting American Beauty. Other times his analysis collapses under its own pretentious weight, as in last year’s overly serious Revolutionary Road. Away We Go, written by splendid memoirist/novelist Dave Eggers and his wife Vendela Vida, shows us a side of Mendes he’s never before revealed — his sense of humor.

Away We Go is essentially a road movie. Expectant couple Burt (John Krasinski of TV’s The Office) and Verona (Maya Rudolph of TV’s Saturday Night Live) are unsure of where they want to put down roots and raise their child, so they set out on a literal and metaphorical journey of discovery across the United States (and Canada), stopping to visit family and friends and glean from them any possible wisdom about what it means to love each other and a child born of that love.

The people they meet (a treasure trove of unparalleled talent) are as eclectic as the cities they meet them in. While Away We Go naturally feels episodic because of this plotting device, the film never overstays its welcome in any one place, staying just long enough for us to assemble the truth of the situation and move on. There’s Burt’s parents (Catherine O’Hara and Jeff Daniels) who announce they are moving to Belgium just weeks before their grandchild is born; Verona’s former co-worker and her husband (Allison Janney and Jim Gaffigan), emotionally detached and thoughtless drunks who delight in taunting their children; and overprotective, pushy new-age parents (Maggie Gyllenhaal and Josh Hamilton). There are decent people too: Verona’s younger sister, Grace (Carmen Ejogo); old college chums and adoptive parents (Chris Messina and Melanie Lynskey) who, while emboldened by love and warmth, also hide a devastating pain; and Burt’s brother (Paul Schneider) who’s wife recently left him and their young daughter.

Although Verona at one point wonders aloud if she and Burt are screw-ups (she doesn’t use the word screw-ups), we know better. If there is any complaint about the couple, it is that they are perhaps too perfect, an oasis of rationality in a sea of people who are light years beyond normal. The more they are contrasted against individuals who are selfish, narcissistic, deluded or distracted by their own pain, the more we realize they are basically without flaws. Don’t be surprised if you come away from this film wishing you too could be Burt or Verona’s best friend; but is that reaction because they are something more than human, something impossibly faultless?

Just as Away We Go’s supporting cast is peerless, so too are the film’s leads. Rudolph, best known for her broad comedic interpretations on SNL is revelatory, creating a character of depth and dimension without ever once feeling the need to fall back on her considerable (but inappropriate) comedic talents. As her Verona travels the arc from petrified mother to sifting through her wounded memories of the loss of her own parents to find the wisdom they imparted, she is finally ready to embrace her future as a mother. Krasinski, a beloved television star who has not yet had transitional success to the big screen, does so unquestionably as a slightly dorky hipster completely unconscious of how cool he really is. Krasinski’s comic timing and rapport is mesmerizing (several scenes in which he shouts out expletives to raise his unborn child’s heart rate are deliriously funny, as is a segment with a stroller). A character of innate inner strength who radiates a placid, even unflappable exterior, Krasinski’s Burt is as disarming as the movie in which he shines.

Away We Go is a rare treat — a poignant, cliché evasive, idiosyncratic, sun-dappled comedy that hides bittersweet ruminations on love, parenthood and life in general within a rumpled open-ended narrative. Singer-songwriter Alexi Murdoch provides the ideal musical accompaniment for this nomadic journey. Part laugh out loud comedy, part biting satire, Away We Go is a wise, effortless little film, intuitively aware that the line separating disappointment and tragedy as well as eccentricity and mirth is often a moving target. Faced with equal parts pessimism and hopefulness, Burt and Verona decide that the only thing they can control are themselves and as formulaic drivel as it sounds, the answers they need were within each of them all along.

© Copyright 2009 Brandon Fibbs. All rights reserved.