VoML Postfilm Report: Away We Go (2009)

TOP BILLED ACTORS
John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph, Catherine O’Hara, Jeff Daniels, Allison Janney, Jim Gaffigan, Carmen Ejogo, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Josh Hamilton, Paul Schneider, Chris Messina, Melanie Lynskey

DIRECTOR
Sam Mendes

3 POSITIVES

• At times, Krasinski (Burt) was actually quite charming and despite my annoyance with Rudolph (Verona) from her SNL days, I thought she was pretty good in this film. The two actors had good chemistry.
  
• The diner scene (in Montreal) is actually pretty great. Chris Messina pretty much stole every scene he was in.
• The entire Madison sequence was so awful it was actually funny. Is it a bad thing when the funniest scenes were when a toddler admits to trying to smother his baby sister and when Burt fake yells at Verona, calling her a “cunt-sucker”?

3 NEGATIVES

• Didn’t actually see any of the cities. In fact, I would be surprised if any of the scenes were shot in the cities they claimed to be in. I understand that their reasons for going to each city was because they knew people in them but it seemed like 100% of their reasoning for liking one city over another was whether they had good experiences with the people they were seeing. It just doesn’t seem consistent with their lifestyles (doesn't seem like they have any friends where they currently live).
• I hated Juno. Why is that pertinent? Because I hated the writing in this film for some of the same reasons. There were very few actual characters, only caricatures. I felt like I was constantly being punched in the face with character traits. If I was from Madison, I would be pissed after watching this film.
• Small stuff: Burt’s blatant breast fetish was a little creepy. Paul Schneider was criminally misused in this film. Go rent All the Real Girls or The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.

BEST PERFORMANCE
Chris Messina as Tom Garnett

MOST UNDERRATED PERFORMANCE
Chris Messina as Tom Garnett

HEY, IT'S THAT GUY...
Hot pocket guy, Jim Gaffigan. Allison Janney, Juno’s stepmom and the romance novel writing counselor from 10 Things I Hate About You.

REMINDED ME OF...
Juno

WOULD I PURCHASE IT? No

WOULD I WATCH IT IF I CAME ACROSS IT ON CABLE? No

I WILL GIVE…

-PSon