Away We Go

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With his aptly titled debut novel, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers introduced a style of writing that he has continued to explore ever since — self-deprecating pathos mixed with goofy laughs and tear-jerking tenderness. Now, nine years later, Eggers and his wife Vendela Vida share screenwriting credits on Away We Go, a rom-com date movie that attempts to translate this approach to the big screen. Sadly, with its lacklustre acting, syrupy soundtrack and the overwrought direction of Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Revolutionary Road), this story would have best been left on the printed page.

As the film opens, thirtysomething couple Burt (John Krasinski) and Verona (Maya Rudolph) find themselves somewhat off-course in life. She’s a freelance illustrator and six months pregnant; he’s an insurance salesman, obsessed with becoming more of a manly man for his daughter. We quickly learn they’ve uprooted themselves to be closer to his parents (Jeff Daniels and Catherine O’Hara, in one of the film’s funniest scenes), but they rapidly find themselves with no real reason to stay and in need of a new home.

From here, Burt and Verona embark on a cross-country jaunt, experiencing a series of wacky situations and run-ins with old friends that reveal why each city won’t work. The always excellent Maggie Gyllenhaal and Josh Hamilton (of Noah Baumbach’s Kicking and Screaming) provide the film’s most memorable sequence as spacey new-age parents with their own set of bonkers-crazy parenting strategies. Unfortunately, in other scenes — specifically the one involving Verona and her sister Grace (Carmen Ejogo) shopping for a bathtub and reminiscing about their upbringing — viewers will likely find themselves choking on sap.

Indeed, this unbalanced mix of easy laughs and emotional moments is Away We Go’s most obvious downfall. Krasinski and Rudolph have proved themselves to be skilled small-screen comedic actors on The Office and Saturday Night Live, respectively, but when it comes to tackling fare as sensitive as this script, they aren’t able to hack it. The filmmakers must be in love with Antarctic singer-songwriter Alexi Murdoch as well, as his moody, adult contemporary tunes appear in almost every scene, creating more of an annoyance and distraction than accompaniment. It’s an unoriginal opinion to state that the book is better than the film, but in this case, one is left wishing that the former even existed.