Away We Go (2009)

Writers:  Dave Eggers & Vendela Vida

The Quote I Quote Most Often:  “Burt, I love my babies.  Why would I want to push them away from me?”  ~LN (in regard to strollers)

Favorite Quote This Time Around:  “Okay, that's it! That's it! You are a terrible person.

Did you know that? You are terrible people. And Verona? She is twice the woman that

you'll ever be! Because this whole thing... I just...I never... I'm sorry because...And this 

guy! Look at him!”  ~Burt

Character I Most Identify With:  Verona

I thought I would embrace my condition today and watch Away We Go, the story of Burt and Verona who are about to have a baby (“or in three months, thank you”) and are on a quest to find where they want to live and raise their child.  Along the way, they visit many different families with lots of opinions on parenting. My favorite of these characters is Lily, played by Allison Janney.  Everyone knows someone like this . . . .

I think Maya Rudolph is one of the most beautiful women on the planet.  Don’t you think?

And this is the most beautiful wedding scene of any movie I’ve ever seen ever . . . 

 

My favorite vow is …

Burt: And do you promise that if I die some embarrassing and boring death that you're gonna

tell our daughter that her father was killed by Russian soldiers in this intense hand-to-hand

combat in an attempt to save the lives of 850 Chechnyan orphans?

Verona: I do. Chechnyan orphans. I do.

In the “Making Of” featurette, Maya Rudolph says of reading the screenplay for the first time, “It was so incredible to me that someone wrote this that wasn’t me.”

I don’t necessarily feel that way about this film, but I’ve read plenty of novels, poems, screenplays, song lyrics that I felt that way about.  I read something and think, “How did I not think of this first?!”  or  “How does someone else walking the planet know exactly how I feel?”  I think it’s high praise to react to writing in that way – to tap into a human experience so completely that you are able to articulate what others can’t put into words.  And it’s gratifying when you can’t express something in your own words to be able to point to someone else’s words and say, “This.  This is how I feel.”