"Away we went"

When a movie review in a respectable paper such as the New York Times comes off like its a bit on the fence, you end up feeling like the critics are just trying too hard to do their job.

Atleast, in this case, the review that seems to try too hard to dislike Sam Mendes's latest movie "Away we Go", said enough to convince me to go watch it. Besides, I guess I am something of a Mendesophile. Especially after his star-studded play "The Cherry Orchard" (originally by Anton Chekov, edited by Tom Stoppard) earlier this year.

The set up is simple- a pregnant couple sets out to visit freinds in search of the perfect environment in which to raise their child. Why? Because they are socially conditioned to think that there is such a thing as a perfect setting in which to raise a child. They are shown to run into everything from obscenity mouthing parental horror stories to zen loving, organic-food-eating self absorbed New Age drivelers to those that suffer in the quiet dissapointment of not being parents.

The movie is as unassuming and seeking as its lead characters, if a bit deliberately funny and cloying in some of its frames. You have to love the honest modesty of the characters who wonder if its a cause of worry that they have outgrown the get-a-home-and-a-mortgage stage of their life. I dig the unpretentious indie feel of the movie that among other things encourages idyllic fantasies of a free form life where you first choose the city and the freinds and then the job, and not the other way round - no discussion of this movie is complete without cubicle talk such as this. I know that was part of the movie's plan...

The point is- to me, as the one who pays to see the movie at the theater - this movie reaches its audience. When you tell stories for a living, its all about how well you tell them. So regardless of Mr. Mendes's personal opinion about the perils of living the American suburban dream or about being a New Age driveler, this is a very well made movie. That's all I care about. And the fact that it reaffirms my faith in an imperfect world.