Away We Go

“Are we fuck ups?”

Burt Farlander and Verona De Tessant are two people dedicated to each other who are searching for their place in the world, as they are about to welcome a baby into theirs. “Are we fuck ups?” Why haven’t they done anything with their lives? Why don’t they have more things figured out by now? Questions dominate this story. When they can’t answer their own questions, they travel all around America to try and find the answers in their family and friends.

"Away We Go" goes through all the different types of family lifestyles within the span of ninety-eight minutes. With the kind of questions they are asking they go to all of their close family relatives, people they trust, and look at how they operate. What is the answer, what is the best way to raise a family? Where is the best place for a young child? These are the biggest questions facing any young family. Even though the couple isn’t exactly young their worries are that of a young couple. They aren’t the richest, and they aren’t the smartest. They don’t have many friends, and they don’t have that many opportunities awaiting them. However, they are in love. With love they will discover everything they need to know.

What makes this movie so wonderful is the portrayal of love in so many ways and situations. I have never seen this kind of love shown in a movie. It usually is the perfect love story when two people meet serendipitously and everything works out in the end for them both. This movie takes a different route by actually portraying love in the way that most people in the world can relate to. Verona (Maya Rudolph) is six months pregnant and all everyone wants to tell her is how big she is. Not exactly what a woman wants to hear. Burt (John Krasinski) isn’t the businessman of his dreams and hasn’t been able to provide all of the riches for Verona like he once planned for. These are broken people with real stories and real hurts. They have sacrifices that need to be made. With love as their guiding light they are able to make it through obstacles and tribulations. After seeing their friends and families, they discover that none of their lifestyles are what they want. They have to find a way to live their own life and raise their child in their own way.

Verona doesn’t want to ever get married. Burt wants to marry her with all of his heart. The marriage might not happen, but the love, the most important factor in a marriage, is there. They don’t have all of the answers to life. Nonetheless they will make it because they have each other and love. This movie could have been so cheesy in many ways, but somehow the comedy and drama were interwoven beautifully.

One of the last scenes of the movie explains everything in such a simplistic and graceful way. They had made promises to each other after everything they had learned and experienced over the past couple of weeks, and wanted to stop looking for the answers from other people and instead just live their lives as it comes. They can’t plan ahead for every kind of situation and there’s no need to. A home is something a family builds. It’s not something a family can find. 

“This place is perfect for us” Burt said.

Verona can only respond with “I hope so. I really hope so.”