Sunday, November 14, 2010

Away We Go: A Film Review...


I watched two films this weekend, one on Friday night and one on Saturday night.  Friday night I watched Moon, mentioned in an earlier post, and on Saturday night I watched Away We Go.  Guess which one I put on our Netflix queue and which one my wife put there...

This remarkably bad film is the product of Sam Mendes (American Beauty) and possesses none of the twists or intelligence of that film.  It does share a disparaging view of American society and Americans in general however.  One wonders if there is anything good to be found within American society from Mendes' point of view and if there is, it evidently lies within the over educated, snarky, under achievers found here in the main couple.

Its not even that I don't agree with many of the targets of Mendes' skewering found within Away We Go.  From white trash alcoholics to self indulgent parents to academically cloistered neo-hippies, I detest these groups with likely the same passion as Mendes--its just his lens through which he filters these views in this film is so poor, both in writing, structure and acting (oh the acting!) is so badly distracting that his points get lost.

John Kraskinski (The Office) and Maya Rudolph (SNL and Grown Ups) are so god awfully uninteresting and stupid as characters and just deadpan vanilla to the point of wondering if they were mentally impaired as actors that there is no way one can care about what they are going through.

I had three beers while viewing this film...the only way to enjoy this film for me would have been if I had consumed about a dozen more and blacked out...

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