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Sam Mendes' Away We Go is a hit thanks to charming refusal to marry
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Away We Go is the latest movie by director Sam Mendes. Mendes is the Oscar-winning director of such movies as American Beauty and Revolutionary Road. He is also, of course, the lucky husband of Kate Winslet. But what Mendes has done with Away We Go is possibly even cooler than that matrimonial fact. To give credit where it is due, the screenplay was written by partners Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida. Eggers wrote A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Vida has written three novels: Girls on the Verge, And Now You Can Go, and Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name.
The film opens with a shot of main characters in their humble, moonlit bedroom. Verona (Maya Rudolph) is receiving oral sex from her boyfriend Burt (John Krasinski) who is hidden under the covers. A conversation ensues about the change in taste of her lady parts. It could only mean one thing. Besides a yeast infection. Pregnancy! Truly, one of the least discussed issues surrounding pregnancy is that hormones during early pregnancy often cause the vagina to change smell quite noticeably.
So the 30-something unmarried couple’s journey into the world of pregnancy begins. And the best part is that there is no shotgun wedding! Verona quietly and confidently refuses to get married; she doesn’t need the ceremony or the cost or the legality to love Burt, and you can’t help but love her all the more for it. She makes feminist moms around the word proud. And Burt, the dad-to-be, is charming and un-patronizing, a real breath of fresh air. A movie this modern and in-touch with realistic couples who choose to stay unmarried yet happily committed, has been a long time coming.
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