AWAY WE GO
/
2009
DIRECTOR: SAM MENDES
CINEMATOGRAPHER: ELLEN KURAS
WRITER: DAVE EGGERS & VENDELA VIDA
BUDGET: $17,000,000
GROSS: $9,451,946
Away We Go is a great little romantic-dramedy that takes our main couple (Burt and Verona) on a road trip of sorts, as they try to decide where to make their life with their baby that is due in three months.
Sam Mendes, known formuch darker and dramatic fare (American Beauty, Road To Perdition, Revolutionary Road, 1917...) does a really nice job with this film. And the script from Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida (Eggers' wife) is great.
In the amazing novel of his that I read (You Shall Know Our Velocity), Eggers' writing is very modern, witty, quick and hip. But that isn't the case with Away We Go. For this screenplay he, and his co-writer, were really able to write for the characters and the story, rather then fitting them into a writing style or attitude. Not to say the film isn’t smart and witty, but it is so in the ways that fit the experience and the film.
And finally I have to mention the casting of Maya Rudolph and John Krasinski. I don't know if they were the first choices or not, but I will say that they should have been. They are both great at the comedic stuff - as one would expect - but the drama and the rest didn't phase them either. They also had chemistry - which, given the fact that they are in 99% of the film together really would be a deal breaker no matter how good the script and the directing was.
