Away We Go

Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida, the Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward of the literary journal universe (he of McSweeney's, both of the Believer), wrote this film, which the Englishman Sam Mendes, of "American Beauty" and "Revolutionary Road," directed. And in tone and plotting, "Away We Go" feels like a fairy tale built on an aggravating collection of attitudes. It's condescending, judgmental, righteous, yet sincerely searching. It's also the very rare American movie about men and women in their 30s - intelligent, articulate, appreciably lifelike people; people with insecurities and volition and a sense of humor.

An entire generation of directors and writers is passing through their adult youth sucking their thumbs and staring at the navels of their teenage selves in movies like "Adventureland" and "Lymelife." They go to work in Judd Apatow's hormone factory, which cranks out hypersensitive male nostalgia comedies about a strain of permanent adolescence. Those movies, as pleasurable as some of them are, feel only loosely connected to the actual world. No one begrudges Wes Anderson, David Gordon Green, or Spike Jonze their dioramas, sand castles, and microcosms, but it would be nice for their worlds to meet ours.

At the very least, "Away We Go" acknowledges passage into a rite of adulthood. The usual Sturm und Drang of balls, chains, and sacrifice, of marital regrets and misgivings doesn't happen. Verona and Burt aren't asking what kind of grown-ups they want to be. They're wondering what sort of a mom and dad they'll make. That parental existentialism gives the movie moments of beauty, mostly when the couple are lying around thinking aloud, once on a trampoline in Miami exchanging child-rearing vows. (She refuses to actually marry him, in part because her deceased parents wouldn't be able to attend the wedding.)