Like any sane person, I hate the neutered wryness of hipster humorist Dave Eggers. Still, there are worse movies to endure this summer than Away We Go—now in wide(r) release as Eggers’ first screenplay. Eggers isn’t the only reason right-minded people would skip the film, though. It’s directed by Sam Mendes, who’s given us I’m-scared-of-Americans classics such as American Beauty and Revolutionary Road. His modern war film Jarhead was a more interesting mess, since the director couldn’t hate his Marines enough to placate the critics who adore him.

Away We Go is a film where Mendes—and Eggers—seem happy with hating the core audience. Jerry (John Krasinski) and Gloria (Maya Rudolph) are thirtyish non-marrieds who are about to have a kid, and wander the country (and Canada) in search of a place to raise their child. It’s already telling that Jerry wants to get married. Gloria is simply too much of a free spirit. Their journey starts when Jerry’s equally free-spirited parents announce that they’re moving to Belgium, but they’ll try to get around to visiting their grandchild. (Jerry’s dad is played by Jeff Daniels, who was equally effective as an oblivious boomer in The Squid and the Whale.)

The couple’s quest begins with a predictable look at a suburban plastic-fantastic existence in Arizona. Things get interesting when the couple arrive in the liberal bastion of Madison, Wisconsin. Maggie Gyllenhaal does an amazing turn as a blownbrain Leftist mother who’s full of moronic theories about childrearing, while Josh Hamilton is perfectly patronizing as her overgrown trust-fund brat of a husband. Judging from her past public comments, Gyllenhaal probably has no idea she’s playing a moron. Jerry and Gloria are still properly offended before their visit is over, and this sequence alone makes for the most right-wing comedy of the year.

From there, Jerry and Gloria go to Montreal to meet some decent human beings. There aren’t any token rants against America, though. Then the script takes a touching detour as Jerry visits his suddenly-divorced brother, and ends with a sequence that suggests Jerry and Gloria might abandon their voguish mentality for a more traditional sense of homestead. That’s not any real spoiler. The true spoiler is that Away We Go doesn’t pander to kidults. Maybe it’s a trend. Even Helen Thomas seems to be growing up nowadays.

 

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