Expecting couple John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph decide to audition new home towns in this pleasant comedy-drama. It ranges from broad comedy—they visit a couple of wacky relatives and friends—to wistful romance, without becoming clichéed. Stops include Tuscon and Montréal, less common film settings. Krasinski (of NBC’s The Office) brings a low-key charm to the role, while Rudolph, whose only other lead was in Idiocracy, shows some dramatic skills. She’s one of the very few Saturday Night Live veterans who I’ve seen do something that didn’t just seem like an outgrowth of a skit. The two actors seem like a real couple, and another thing I liked was that in the whole movie they never fight, even though they disagree. It’s nearly a cliché of any road movie that the travelers at some point have to have a big blow-up. Here, they just pretend to have one, in one of the lightly comic moments in which the movie is at its best.
Director Sam Mendes has a résumé loaded with heavy (pretentious, some might say) films—American Beauty, Road to Perdition, Jarhead, and Revolutionary Road—but there is nothing to suggest that here. Partial credit goes to married novelists Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida, who make mostly successful screenwriting debuts. Mendes doesn’t make the movie any sort of a travelogue; instead, he reminds us that sometimes the most satisfying part of a trip is arriving home.
IMDB link
viewed 6/11/09 (screening at Ritz East) and reviewed 7/16/09
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