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Away We Go: A Screenplay by Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida By Melissa J Wantuck  |
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Available this month for adventuresome readers is Away We Go: A Screenplay by Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida. The movie of the same title, starring John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph, will be in theaters starting June 26, after its limited June 5 release. Away We Go is written around a humorous premise but soon is mired down by generalizations, each carrying their own agenda, so instead of cementing the story, they only leave more holes in it to lose the audience in.
Burt and Verona are in their mid-30s, both are work-at-home professionals and following a slow-course track through life, plodding along not concerned with the future or thinking of making any big decisions regarding it. They’ve been in a long-term, committed relationship and content with where they’re at in life. That’s the overall impression of the two put together after getting to know them a bit because the story starts with a bombshell landing on their laps and Burt and Verona have to face the future quick before nine months is up and there’s no more time to make decisions. Actually, there are two bombshells. They happen a few months apart but they both relate to what’s coming for Burt and Verona.
Both come from small families and because Verona’s parents are dead, they live near Burt’s parents and want to be there by the only set of grandparents their child will have. Once the initial shock of finding out they’re pregnant is over, they move into the typical parents-to-be role of planning. Verona is in her fifth month when Burt’s parents announce with giddy teenage-like self-centered enthusiasm they’re moving to Belgium for two years.
Burt and Verona are left feeling like the floor has fallen out from underneath the new, but still shaky foundation they’ve been putting together towards their already uncertain future. They’re so stunned by this new development, they decide to scrap it all and move to a whole new place, starting fresh. The rest of the story is their journey around the country, “interviewing” possible locations and the people they know there to find the place that’s right for them. In each place they meet with a family that is anything but normal, dealing with various types of conflict and turmoil. Their traveling is anything but smooth and then a family emergency alters their course and provides the direction they need to put their future in focus.
The story is rife with crudeness and sexual vulgarity so the R rating for the movie is not a surprise. Once you’re passed the opening foreplay session, the story is humorous, but it’s torn between simply mocking human behaviors and trying to be a serious allegory. The writers attempted to address too many stereotypes and the end result is an overdone social commentary.
In the forward by the writers note some of the scenes in the book were cut from the movie but do not designate which ones they are, leaving some difference between the two. The movie consists of a well-known cast of actors and actresses who were easy to imagine in the roles, except Maya Rudolph carrying “Jim’s” baby and not “Pam,” for those who are fans of “The Office”!
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