Away We Go: Loving you is easy cuz you're beautiful.

This is the kind of film to watch when you're warm and cozy inside several blankets, and rain comes down outside. It's a film about finding comfort in a world where dysfunction is inherent in the process of trying to wade through a world such as that. It's about the simplicity and strength of love, and how when things get awful, we can turn in toward that love and find warmth. Maya Rudolph and John Krasinski play an unmarried but long-term couple who become pregnant, and must take a good long look at all the bits of their lives before they can create a home for their soon-to-be-family. And it's clear that this is the kind of couple that has most of the right priorities in mind. We learn that they left Chicago for the woods of Colorado to be near Burt's (Krasinki) parents. We see that Verona (Rudolph) is ill at ease, but basically loves Burt, and Burt, while a little frantic, seems to have his family's best interests in mind. They would probably raise a child just fine without the journey they undergo.

So why does this story take place? Well it isn't really a film about a baby. Unlike Knocked Up or Baby Boom, Away We Go takes only a passing interest in how the details of the pregnancy affects the couple. It seems more as a catalyst for them to take the aforementioned good long look. They travel to different cities to reconnect with various friends and family members (I expected the issue of money to be a bigger concern, but it's as passing as the pregnancy), and watch as ever-healthier, though always-complicated family lives play out before them, allowing to them to decide, not just what kinds of parents, but what kinds of adults they'd like to be.

Sam Mendes' open thoughtful composition works beautifully for Away We Go, and it's the most mature I've seen him. I know he likes to hide behind his "subtle" British pomposity, but he basically makes broad, nearly cartooney choices for the looks of his films, and while in 2000 that was breathtaking and original, like waking up or being born, these days it seems as obvious as using a camera. That he can make a film with clutter and life and layers of energy (rather than just layers of color) is a great thing.

Many of the choices seem mature here. I guess people called the couple boring, or the film a tour of banality or some such rude thing, but I just found it to be about good people staring wide-eyed at the world around them, and the lives they've wandered into, and making strong choices about the future. That's such a statement about life today, that adding some dark drama would have seemed panderous. Is that a word? The quality of pandering? What the fuck ever, I don't care. The point is this film was really good.

Can I say a bad thing about it? Hmmm. It certainly had a formula. The chapters of the story were announced at the beginning like an index, and we watched it go through them. But if you accept that it isn't a weakness. The overall flow was really nice and the conclusion, while predictable, felt right.

Oh and Maya Rudolph is gorgeous. She has officially made it onto my list of acceptable cheats. Nat that she's be interested. Or that I'm in a relationship. Just saying. What were we talking about? Some film? Pixar's Up. Good stuff, man. Up, Up, and Away We Go. Nice.