It is a hard thing to graft on the Auteurist thinking onto Sam Mendes‘ latest film, Away We Go. The director is famous for meticulous visual set-ups that can often strangle or at least be reductive with regards to the storytelling. On the other hand, there is Dave Eggars, whose novel “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” has quite a unique combination of observation, exaggeration, comedy and drama that is both telling and narcissistic. A times Eggars can be as blunt as a hammer, yet often revealing sweet texture and truth under its aggressive and feathery-soft style. Often you just want to throw a frisbee with the same mythical glee that Eggars and his brother do in that novel.
But really, what struck me with the film is its smack-down of obsessive parenting and parenting philosophy in the modern age. Forget religion, forget politics; if you are in a conversation with expecting or new parents be prepared to go to psychological war with them if the conversation ever turns to this subject (and this can be darn near inevitable, as expecting or new parents don’t get out much for other lines of conversation.) Thus having our couple (played exceptionally humble and fragile by John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph, respectively) encounter a series of vignettes of parenting caricatures makes Away We Go into an amusing primer of the sorts of long term and short-term life decisions one has to make when a little one is on the way. These may seem rather easy (certainly not as immediate and concrete as having to deal with medical or health problems of an infant, and most parents go through one or two big scares, not to mention the chances of autism when the parents (as in the case of Rudolph’s character) are beyond a certain age), but really the devil is in the details (note this article over at the Huffington Post on raising kids in a ‘free-range’ fashion, for instance). Either way, there are lots of things on offer in Away We Go, things that may make you go hmmm, for all the little decisions on how you are going to raise your children to be independent, loving, etc. adults done as a complete film rather than the grandstanding speech from Aaron Eckart‘s Tobacco Lobbyist (which does achieve similar returns) in another light-hearted (albeit completely differnt) satire Thank-You For Smoking.
Someone brought up Alexander Payne‘s Sideways as an example of similar tone/structure (dramatic satire?), but I’d offer that Jim Jarmusch‘s Broken Flowers captures the right blend of absurdity towards getting at something greater. Jarmusch’s style lends this mixture a bit better as he is more aloof, playful, and his conclusions not so obvious or convenient as the conclusion of Away We Go. Sure ‘this big old house on the lake’ is hinted at over the course of the film but in a dramedy of finding yourselves on your journey, having a convenient safety net is kind of undermining and pat don’t ya think? It totally lets the audience off the hook from a security point of view. In fact, all their friends and family in the film seem quite well off in an arch Wes Anderson sort of way, which didn’t quite strike me as effective. The constant disdain (or is it fear?) that the lead couple express at the world around them, John Krasinski‘s self-involved parents (way over the top from Jeff Daniels and Catherine O’Hara, two actors I generally love, but felt jarring in their scene here, exactly like the ‘kick-start-the-plot’ device they are) threatens to add a layer of smugness to the picture that thankfully it manages to dance away from in most instances. Although I’d expect a lot of older audiences to do some serious finger-wagging at Maggie Gyllenhaal’s character (hippie-isms filtered through child-rearing and ‘natural’ methods that get the biggest smack-down from the filmmakers); and the younger set to do the same at Allison Janney’s caricature of ‘old-school’ parenting. I can fault the obviousness of these lessons, but who else is asking them? And on a more subtle note, was anyone watching the adopted children in Montreal while the parents melted down over biology? It is a weird thing never addressed, or at least I missed it from the distraction of the ‘amateur strip tease night at a Gentleman’s Club in Montreal.’ I never knew these places existed. All of these exaggerated parenting situations server (however obvious) that the main couple is up in the air, yet levelheaded and caring and questioning. They are the good Libertarians is a sea of modern dogmatic bullshit! Take that Noam Chomsky.
In the end, I do believe that Away We Go is a good litmus test film and conversation starter for these sorts of questions for our times. Isn’t that what art is supposed to do?
would you, rot or any Hater or Lover X of Away We Go state that if your views of parenting are among the ones mocked in the film, that you may end up disliking the movie?
Would any of you guess that is what has happened in any reviewers’ cases?
Perhaps, Goon. An interesting commentary on the critical love for Sideways is that Paul Giamatti’s character is like the CRITIC HERO and the bulk of the critics simply strongly identified.
my opinion was that the film is confrontational tonally, and if there were ever reasons for reviewers to take offense to the film it would be that it goes where it wants to go and doesn’t ask for your permission. In Sean’s review at Film Junk he didn’t like it because it was following the indie quirk formula and he didn’t like the characters and didn’t find it particularly funny. Humour is a hard thing to gage, I think this is the funniest movie I have seen in a long time, and thing is, its not foremost a comedy, not like The Hangover for example. There was less pressure to it, it didn’t rely on the next punchline to justify its existence.
Maybe Sean was seeing it as supposed to being that way, he does mention Wes Anderson and I don’t see the comparison. Take The Royal Tenanbaums for example, there is a suicide attempt in the film but how it is portrayed is still quirky, it has a Elliott Smith track over top of it, comedy is rendered by how everyone confronts the event, the veneer of quirk never leaves a Wes Anderson film… this, which is Eggers more than Mendes, has sincerity and irony co-exist in the same universe, side by side without needing to be one or the other. I think that is what is off-putting about the film…
but like I said elsewhere, not even the people who agree to loving the film can agree to why, so is the strange complexity of the film apparently.
and Kurt, I just don’t see the argument that the ending is undermining the message. The point is they come to the realization that they could go there, when Verona comes to terms with the past, and the whole thing about finding your place in the world, that place was always understood to be a place in SOCIETY, around caring people. Its not so much finding yourself as finding your place in the world, and its only by the end in Away We GO (Spoilers) that they realize the spirit of Verona’s childhood is family enough, is society enough, for them. Unlike the Andrew/Gamble argument that the ending is about admiring one’s acreage, its about finding home. This issue of finances you all bring up truly perplex me. Are you saying wealthy people don’t suffer? Are you saying having a big house is what secures their happiness? There is one line in the beginning about being poor, and that is the only line, the rest of it is about finding good people and being part of something loving. Money is not an issue in the film, nor should it be.
Funny, Kurt, you mention the babysitting issue of the Montreal couple, as you made the same kind of nitpicking of Mendes’ other film, Rev Road, where are the kids?! Who cares, they are off stage, focus on what is on stage. I never understood these realism nitpicks for films that show no vested interest in being purely real. There is a contrivance to the story, and we agree it is most like Broken Flowers, go from one house and worldview to the next, but what is wrong with that contrivance so long as what is being expressed is in itself of some worth?
One of my favorite books is Douglas Coupland’s Life After God, and one of the key stories has to do with these characters swimming in a pool and where they go as they grow up, and that too is contrived, each character perpetuating a worldview for the sake of Coupland getting across his own message, but is that in itself something to nitpick? For Jandy, maybe, while she likes Away We Go, her main gripe is that everything is prepackaged for the couple, go here, get advice, go here, get advice… and to me thats fine so long as Eggers has something to say, and I believe he does.
Structurally and tonally Away We Go is like Broken Flowers, but it has the kind of wry observations of life that Sideways or any of Payne’s films have, and so I see it as a merging of those two, but ultimately it is Eggers.
The last Coupland book I read was Girlfriend in a Coma. Once the end of the world part happens it turns into maybe the most pretentious pile of shit I’ve ever read. I kept reading it because I had already gotten that far, and I hated every agonizing minute as I finished it.
Perhaps the film is bleaker than I though. It’s better to spend their time and raise their children under Rudolph’s dead parents, then engage with any of their living friends and relatives – who all happen to be narcissistic nutjobbers.
Don’t get me wrong, I quite liked AWAY WE GO. I just liked the ‘danger and confusion’ of A HEARTBREAKING WORK where Eggars has only a small amount of money to raise himself and his brother and find his place in the world.
The lakefront Savannah Mansion puts them in the lap of privileged occupied folks in the ‘ironic and quirky’ Wes Anderson or Whit Stillman, and it seems that the film was more aiming at ‘every-man’ than privileged. It is only a very minor bump though, nowhere near the dealbreaker. Who knows, in a few years, this may be the parenting version of THE BIG LEBOWSKI. Or as I stated above, BROKEN FLOWERS is probably the best road-trip vignette comparison.
I happen to like Coupland’s END OF THE WORLD fantasies and trips. He does it with the closer of GENERATION X, and it factors to one degree or another in a lot of his books.
Favourite Coupland: ALL FAMILY’S ARE PSYCHOTIC
Worst Coupland: J-POD (ick.)
@Rot. on the kids. Isn’t the outlook on how to raise your kids and find your place in the world and in yourselves the thesis of the film? In this instance, it should be important to a degree.
(Also, I find the reliance on biology of the Montreal parents to be rather icky. We’ve got all these adopted kids but really we only want ‘real’ kids. Ewwwww.)
And I agree that the Auteur here is clearly Eggars and his co-writer lady. Mendes seemed to take a more quick-laid-back approach in the directing department, and the film is better for it.
Loved the chapter titles though. the top picture in this article is an hommage to that.
I don’t think wanting a kid of their own was in anyway a slight against their adopted kids, and irrespective of how many kids you have the scenario that is depicted is a lousy thing.
Goon, again opposite sides, I thought Girlfriend in a Coma was great, end of the world and all. And JPod is the worst, absolutely. Life After God is perfect though, I have read it like seven times. I need to read All Families are Psychotic still.
“Perhaps the film is bleaker than I thought. It’s better to spend their time and raise their children under Rudolph’s dead parents, then engage with any of their living friends and relatives – who all happen to be narcissistic nutjobbers.”
don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to say it was a decision born out of these encounters… that is the brilliance of the ending to me, it is indifferent of what came before it. The reason they go where they go is not based on what happened in their journeys, it happened because there is a fruit tree in Miami. thats what gets the ball rolling. This breaks with convention, but to me anyways is also a beautiful logical segueway to a conclusion that is also beautiful and logical.
also I don’t think they are all narcissistic nutjobbers, Miami and Montreal and Tucson are very normal people, and Madison and Pheonix and the parents are eccentric… thats a pretty good balance, another reason I don’t see this as straight satire, its not straight anything.
I am tempted to read Vendela Vida, has anyone read anything by her?
because I love this quote and because I am thinking you may not have seen it the first time I posted, I am posting it again.
this to me, is how to understand the tonal, structural indifference of Eggers’ storytelling:
“what am i giving you? i am giving you nothing. i am giving you things that god knows, everyone knows. they are famous in their deaths. this will be a memorial to them… i tell you and it evaporates. i don’t care – how could i care? i tell you how many people i have slept with (thirty-two), or how my parents left this world, and what have i really given you? nothing. i can tell you the names of my friends, their phone numbers, but what do you have? you have nothing… i give you virtually everything i have. i give you all of the best things i have, and while these things are things that i like, memories that i treasure, good or bad, like the pictures of my family on my walls, i can show them to you without diminishing them. i can afford to give you everything… we feel that to reveal embarassing or private things, like, say, masturbatory habits (for me, about once a day, usually in the shower), we have given someone something, that, like a primitive person fearing that a photograph will steal his soul, we identify our secrets, our past and their blotches, with our identity, that revealing our habits or losses or deeds somehow makes one less of oneself. but it is just the opposite, more is more is more – more bleeding, more giving.”
— A HEARTBREAKING WORK OF STAGGERING GENIUS – Dave Eggers
worries of style and decorum are the least of Eggers concern, he writes according to what makes sense to him and that becomes the style. And I say Amen to that. I may not like everything he has to say or write but I admire the spirit of what he does, you take him as he is, or not at all. Away We Go feels very much like his voice, its a voice that is not trying to conform to anything, its trying to pick away at truths whether they be comedic, dramatic, confrontational, slight, it goes wherever it needs to.
oh and Away WE Go soundtrack is awesome, the most played soundtrack for me since Once.
curiously how many people thought that was Nick Drake crooning through the film? Not so.
@Kurt, actually some of their kids were older teenagers so I assume they would be babysitting, so in retrospect there is no issue there at all. In fact in the car they mention that their kids don’t want them around all the time, they want time to themselves too.
Those kids didn’t look that old. But maybe, in movieland I could buy that.
I just saw this, and I think the major difference between this and Sideways, is that Sideways is about men, and this is about women. Something happened to Sam Mendes after Jarhead, he all of a sudden is only interested in women, after having been so interested in men in his first three films. It sucks, but this movie was alright. There was some funny parts. It reminded me more of Knocked Up than Sideways though, but I like Knocked Up better, because Seth Rogen in that movie is more of a driving force behind the story and the goings on, whereas in this the main characters seem to take no action at any point, except one point in Maggie Gyllenhaals house and you’re like “FINALLY, these people actually have something to say?”. It’s a lot like Rev Road where the retarded guy is the only person with anything to say, and everyone else is just droning through the stuff, unrealistically so.
The soundtrack was pretty over-the-top I thought. Nowhere near the brilliance of the (original) music in Sideways. You know it’s a bad sign when the Music Supervisor gets credited before the composer.
“We’ve got all these adopted kids but really we only want ‘real’ kids. Ewwwww.”
Don’t be condescending Kurt. It’s obviously politically correct to have this opinion you’re expressing, but you can’t deny human nature. It’s different when they are yourself.
did Away We Go have a score, I don’t remember one, it was pop songs, and that is not a detraction, a lot of great films do this.
There is definitely a Mendes schism at work, with people either siding with his earlier pre-Rev Road stuff or what follows, and I am very much about what follows. In fact I would argue he has gotten better with each film, American Beauty being perhaps his worst.
Well, it does have a composer credited, I can’t remember any score at all either. What great films are you referring to? I can think of few examples (Kubrick being one of course) where pre-existing music seems to be a better choice than an original score. Like take Sideways, they didn’t need to use anything other than an original score, made to service the film, not just hammy love songs with lyrics that you can’t help but sit there and go “Ok, so why is this particular song playing when they’re talking about miscarriages? Oh, it says “She’s got everything she wants” or something, that’s clever”.
oh come on, that was a deliberately chosen song by the character in that moment, hence the obviousness. If I am depressed I am going to play something bemoaning the world, thats pretty logical. The ending song is admittedly overt though.
Rachel Getting Married is all music of the reception, no score, Igby Goes Down, also all pop songs, Dazed and Confused.
But are you going to pick a song that on the outside reflects something, but once you get to know the inner secrets it is in fact a biting ironic thing? I think it’s a stretch to assume that the woman would have such a keen sense of self representation. But whatever, not a big deal, I’m just saying I can’t stop thinking about why this and that song is playing, and it is NEVER clever enough for me to be impressed.
I haven’t seen any of the movies you refer to, I really want to see Rachel Getting Married though, even though it’s apparently a ripoff of the dogma films, of which very few I like. Surprisingly the ones directed by women, Italiensk for begyndere and Elsker dig for evigt.
hasn’t Rachel Getting Married come out in Denmark? I actually think you will like that one.
“hasn’t Rachel Getting Married come out in Denmark? I actually think you will like that one.”
If anyone doesn’t, we will ban them.
It played at the Film Festival, I’m not sure if a theater release is planned or has happened and I have been busy with other things. I do want to see it.
well that goes without saying.