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Reviews Counted:157
Fresh:103
Rotten:54
Average Rating:6.5/10
Consensus: Built on a set of quirks and charms that are as noticeable as they are interchangeable, Away We Go is a sweet but uneven road trip.
Theatrical Release:18-09-2009
Synopsis: Director Sam Mendes (AMERICAN BEAUTY) may invoke plenty of indie-comedy tropes in this comic venture, but AWAY WE GO is a tender, sweet, and surprisingly funny addition to the genre. Verona De... [More]
Starring: John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph, Jeff Daniels, Maggie Gyllenhaal
Director: Sam Mendes
Away We Go breathes. Its affectless, tossed-off quality tells a lumpy story built out of a few scenes that fizzle but also a few that transcend, in part because they arrive unexpectedly from an untidy little comedy.
Away We Go is like a disappointing term paper by a promising student.
Away We Go is a self-satisfied film about insecure people, a quirky and episodic comic drama that squanders its genuine assets and ends up not as special as it tries to be.
Top CriticDirector Sam Mendes fails to make them as beautifully fragile as he wants to.
Away We Go promises a funky emotional road trip, and delivers a few funny snapshots. But it takes too many detours, tarries too long in nothing-to-do backwaters, and finally arrives at a destination that was inevitable from the start.
Away We Go overreaches in spots. The hipster soundtrack is too alt-rock. The details, while quite often spot-on, feel too demographically targeted. But there are still plenty of truthful moments.
Krasinki is able to anchor the movie with a limber, melancholy performance -- and doesn't draw too heavily from his overflowing reservoir of nice-guy charm.
The main sin of Away We Go is simple dullness.
Away We Go is an exploratory and occasionally bittersweet trek that takes unexpected turns and winds up in an emotionally satisfying place.
Does it sound as if I hate this movie? Don’t be silly. But don’t be fooled. This movie does not like you.
Top CriticA finely pedigreed comic road film that, when all is said and done, is too finely-tooled for the NPR set to have much life left in it.
Too much information bedrooms, and vibes that may encourage skipping parenthood altogether for those who haven't quite made up their minds yet. And a pro-isolationist impression that the grass is always greener on one's own side of the picket fence.
Though Away We Go lacks the screwball unpredictability of something like Flirting With Disaster, it compensates with a unexpected depth of feeling, a novelist’s (or memoirist’s) sense of detail, and a panoramic view of what home means.
It’s too bad [the writers] didn’t follow their slacker protagonists’ example, and amble slowly through their cross-country road trip flick. Instead, they all labor overtime to mark every stop along the map, usually with neon signs and flashing arrows.
Featuring a revelatory performance from Rudolph as the centered earth mother who nonetheless worries she and Burt have become losers, "Away We Go" illustrates parenthood in every color of the spectrum.
Time and time again, Burt and Verona strike an artful pose while a guitar strums plaintive chords and mournful singer Alexi Murdoch tells the audience just how to feel.
What a pleasure to see a couple who genuinely love each other in a movie - and what a surprise to see it in a movie directed by Sam Mendes.
The fifth film by British theater director Sam Mendes, Away We Go, is the most unkempt movie the director has made so far in his career
Away We Go feels like Sam Mendes saying, "Hey, look, I can just make an entertaining, smart movie. No awards consideration necessary."
It's a lovely attitude in an engaging dramedy, and I hope Mendes has a few more of these within him before he lurches back to the dark side of human behavior.
June 27, 2009:
A rudderless road version of Juno! 
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June 25, 2009:
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We have Dave Eggers. He broke into the mainstream with 2000's A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, the idiosyncratic Pulitzer-nominated memoir about his journey to and... More...
June 17, 2009:
Edinburgh 2009: The Tomato Report – Mendes takes Away We Go International
Another year, another Edinburgh Film Festival, and Rotten Tomatoes is firmly set up in the Scottish city for another fine celebration of film. Once again we're partnering with... More...
June 13, 2009:
PR Newswire: Too much information bedrooms, and vibes that may encourage skipping parenthood altogether for those who haven't quite made up their minds yet.
More...
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