Just caught “Away We Go” on HBO. Still as good as the first time I saw it. Actually, it was probably better. The last time I saw the movie I wasn’t engaged. So perhaps my pending nuptials have made the film even more relatable. I’m sure that’s something every couple said after leaving the theater.
“I feel exactly how Burt and Verona felt,” Adelaide says to her loving boyfriend Shamus. Shamus looks deeply into her eyes.
“We’re not fuck ups baby,” Shamus says.
And they kiss.
I guarantee 50% of couples who saw “Away We Go” said that exact thing or some other version of the dialogue. I did. I’m lame, I know. I’m cool with it. But isn’t that an indication of the quality of a film? Don’t we as an audience want to relate to the stories on the screen? To relate is to empathize. To empathize is to feel what the characters feel. Once you get your audience to feel you’ve made a great movie.
Burt and Verona are madly in love. They’re not bogged down by the do I or don’t I love the other plot twists of the average Hollywood love story. They love each other. Boom. Done. Move on to more meaningful story lines.
“Away We Go” is the rare love story designed for those of us that don’t struggle with whether or not we’re in love. It’s like the middle film in a romantic trilogy. The first film is about falling in love. The last film is about living happily ever. “Away We Go” is the movie about figuring out what you do after falling in love to get you to the happily ever after. It’s the real meat of a love story, and the part of my life I’m in right now.
Although the film is humorous, it’s grounded in the reality of fear that comes with parenthood and growing up. My generation and the one before me and all those after me, are lost in the endless amount of options we have. When you’re a parent you tell your kids they can become anything they want. When my parents were kids that wasn’t true. It was simply something our grandparents told them to give them hope. But for us it is true. Because of that we wonder around aimlessly thinking that nothing but the top is good enough. However, hoping for the best and actually achieving it are two different things. So, many of us are stuck in an endless loop of indecision, and we become stagnant like Burt and Verona.
Dave Eggers and his wife Vendela Vida scripted the film and I wonder how much of it was based on their actual lives. Dave Eggers, as you all know, is a novelist. Best known for his first book “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius”. His wife is also a novelist, best known for “Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name.” Recently I read Eggers “Zeitoun,” about a Syrian-American struggling to survive in New Orleans immediately after Katrina. The book was published by Eggers and all proceeds go to The Zeitoun Foundation which works on the reconstruction of New Orleans. Eggers and Vida have also created 826 Velencia, a writing center for San Francisco youth.
So essentially I want to be Dave Eggers because he’s a talented novelist, screenwriter and philanthropist. Actually, you know what, I’ve changed my mind. I hate Dave Eggers because he’s doing everything I want to do. So screw him. And don’t watch “Away We Go,” it’ll only encourage him.
