Away We Go

rating: ***

Sam Mendes’s films often involve protagonists thinking back on their lives and wondering about priorities. The parallels between his last,Oscar-nominated venture,Revolutionary Road,and his latest,Away We Go,are obvious.

In the first,Kate Winslet’s April starts off an unexpected chain of events when she wonders why they can’t go to France and start over,as they once dreamed of in their youth. In Away We Go,Burt and Verona,“untethered” and “in a dream scenario” — as they call it — decide to do precisely the same,make a new beginning in a “perfect place” for the daughter they are going to have.

They go places,meet friends — one of whom wonders,“Sometimes you think,what happened to Greece,of swimming naked off the coast of Greece?” — and find that no two realities are really the same. If home is where the heart is,the answer really isn’t finding the perfect home,but finding what’s in your heart.

Mendes finds a perfect two to make his latest couple. Krasinksi’s Burt is goofish but good-hearted and clearly adores Rudolph’s Verona. She is the more serious of the two,engaged in the business of drawing insides of the human body for medical and biology books,and weighed down by the physical stress of her sixth month of pregnancy and concerns about what it would involve.

However,despite a discussion about whether they were really messed up to be undecided about where they should live in their mid-30s,what is clearly evident is their easy,non-fussy love for each other. And for a screen couple,their amazing,amazing gentleness and serenity.

Their journey — part autobiographical by writer-couple Dave Eggers and Vendela Viga — through the towns of America,visiting friends and relatives who could provide a family for their child,is largely told by Mendes through humour and dollops of sarcasm aimed at new-age parents and parenting.

While Burt and Verona emerge unscathed from this trip,the film regrettably suffers as the other couples are caricatures in their comparison. We almost know the story of each from the time they make their first appearance on screen.

And this is the failing of Away We Go. While the going is involving,it moves at too unhurried a pace to feel dangerously like getting nowhere.

shalini.langer@expressindia.com