I watched Away We Go for one reason: Maya Rudolph. I didn’t realize until the opening credits that there was a bonus reason: Sam Mendes of American Beauty, Skyfall (Daniel Craig!), Spectre (meh, but Daniel Craig!), Revolutionary Road and Road to Perdition (a little Daniel Craig) directed Away We Go. It is possible that I had unusually high expectations for Away We Go even though I knew nothing about the plot and the full cast and crew.
Away We Go is about an unmarried, but committed and in love couple expecting their first baby. The couple’s work is flexible enough that they can live anywhere, and they want to find the perfect place for their baby/themselves. Away We Go is an unconventional road trip movie about a discovery of oneself and the definition of home, family and community in the postmodern world.
I can intellectually understand that a filmmaker, a writer and an actor can have different intentions regarding the meaning of a scene than I surmise, and my reading of a scene is also a product of my subjective experiences. Maya Rudolph is a biracial person who may not use labels such as black or biracial, but could be categorized as such. Other (white) characters in Away We Go use black to describe her character, Verona, or use what is commonly known as black colloquialisms in their interactions with her. Verona could be considered black, but she could be biracial. I don’t think that she explicitly defines herself in Away We Go. While watching Away We Go, I had no idea who wrote the script and believe that it is possible that even if the writers are white, Rudolph probably provided some input on how to make her character more credible given her personal experiences.
When my demographic seldom gets represented in media and it finally does appear, I worry that others view this specific, individual character as a universal truth about my demographic; therefore I am sensitive to depictions that don’t feel representative of my experience. Before writing reviews, I usually check out other critics’ reviews and the imdb boards because I don’t see the point in regurgitating what someone else already thought and wrote. Roger Ebert and I looked at Away We Go completely differently, but who knows who is right? Only Rudolph and the writers could settle the matter.
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Ebert basically said that Away We Go did not make race an issue so you can ask Rudolph if the baby will be black, and that is the opposite of racism. I’m biracial and black. Just because people are family and/or friends and are superficially nice to you does not mean they are not racist. Away We Go felt like a series of micro aggressions that escalate as the film progresses until the expecting couple gets closer to their desired destination. First, the paternal grandparents could be selfish and not care about their grandbaby. There are people like that even though it is usually the norm that grandparents adore their grandchildren, especially since their son seems well adjusted. Usually signs of being selfish appear way earlier. When the grandmother asks, “Just how black do you think she’ll be?,” it sealed the deal for me. She said that she wants a little Verona, Rudolph’s character, but any darker…… I wonder if they did that with their first grandchild? No. They are moving now.
Second, Verona’s friend and former boss, Lily, played by the magnificent Alison Janney, is a crass and loud woman, which is probably the reason Verona loves her. I don’t doubt that Lily loves Verona, but when she addresses Verona, she awkwardly uses terms gleaned from popular culture to relate to her such as “junk in the trunk.” This joke is not a big deal, but it does not appear to match Verona and Lily’s dynamic. It is a generalized relating technique that does not suit a particular person. (I personally prefer, “I like big butts, and I cannot lie,” for future reference.)
Finally, the most explicit culprit is the well-meaning leftie Earth mother, LN, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal. For me, Away We Go finally comes alive when Gyllenhaal appears on screen. If the image of right-wing racists is KKK, neo-Nazis, Conferederate flag proponents or Trump supporters, LN is a helpful example of the left-wing, intellectual racist.
LN is so humorlessly grotesque and alternative that her character provides a much-needed course correction for Away We Go. Away We Go’s expecting couple initially feels unrealistically quirky for quirky sake, but LN and her family makes the expecting couple normal in comparison. I could finally root for them. LN holds court about black people as noble creatures because of their oral tradition and lack of possessions so “they” have more authentic experiences. I am not your magical Negro or noble savage. Also as the end of Away We Go shows, LN does not see Verona at all. She sees a black person and all her generalizations of black people, which LN then projects on to Verona.
It is unsurprising that the expecting couple finally feel free in Montreal when they meet up with their friends who have pulled a Josephine Baker or Angelina Jolie and adopted every ethnicity of baby in the world and say nothing inadvertently racist or awkward. They authentically reveal their emotions, and Melanie Lynskey performs the best mournful pole dance in the history of ever.
I wanted to just sit and enjoy Away We Go in the same way that I devoured Parenthood. I wanted to see people who looked like me and had similar experiences and responses, but instead it became a constant uncomfortable reminder of the micro aggressions of daily life without any behind the scenes exhaling moment between the couple when they vent about how racist everything is. So I got all the stresses of racism without the enjoyment of hearing how the couple handles it, which felt unnatural and disappointing. Away We Go has a brilliant cast and a lot of potential, but in the end, it privileged quirkiness over frankness. I applaud Away We Go for its pioneering green filmmaking initiative.