Product Details

• Actors: John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph
• Directors: Sam Mendes
• Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 5.1), Spanish (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
• Dubbed: French, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Focus Features
• DVD Release Date: September 29, 2009
• Run Time: 98 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (118 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0021L8UOY
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #12,908 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• Learn more about "Away We Go" on IMDb

Editorial Reviews

John Krasinski (The Office) and Maya Rudolph (Saturday Night Live) star in the heartfelt film that explores the comedic twists and turns in one couple’s journey across contemporary America. Anticipating the birth of their first child, longtime couple Burt (Krasinski) and Verona (Rudolph) embark on an ambitious itinerary to visit friends and family in order to find their perfect home. Featuring a remarkable soundtrack and an incredible ensemble cast – including Jeff Daniels, Allison Janney, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Catherine O’Hara and Jim Gaffigan. It’s the hilarious, witty film that critics are hailing as “absolutely extraordinary!” (Peter Travers, Rolling Stone)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Reminiscent of Garden State, and thats good! October 11, 2009

By Holly K. Lee VINE™ VOICE

Format:Amazon Instant Video|Amazon Verified Purchase

This movie was a charming look at a couple that is struggling to define themselves and to find their place in the world. The comedy was perfectly placed and well written. The story lines were honest and believable glimpses into various peoples very different lives. The main couple visits friends and family around North America trying to find where they would fit. What they find out is that they don't really fit any of those places and they have to make their own way in the world. Excellent movie, one of the best of 2009.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Where should we put down roots? October 31, 2009

By Suzanna Kruger

Format:DVD

My husband and I really liked this movie. We were laughing and laughing until the couple got to Montreal, their fourth stop, and then we were in tears: "She had a miscarriage on Thursday. Her fifth."

Bert and Verona seem like us - late to have a child, still living in a cluttered rented house, asking, "Are we F--K Ups?" They arrive at the beautiful door of old friends and say, "Wow, they seem so grown up." Those were my exact feelings on reconnecting with a childhood friend last winter who is FAR more established than us. Our furniture is hand-me downs, unpainted pine shelves and dusty milk crates stuffed with reference books. Every room in my friend's house looked decorated and cared for (but did she have books? I don't recall). Seeing it made me realize that I was still inhabiting this fantasy that I was still a graduate student...but then I realized that I am the age my mother was when I happened to be in middle school, so thus I am not young, just too poor to have a pretty decorated house with art on the walls. At least the spines on my texts are colorful.

Bert and Verona have no roots - Verona's parents are dead, her sister lives in a different city, and Bert's parents are about to embark on their own journey abroad, in Belgium. It is curious to me now to see that the concept of growing up and going away to college, leaving your family and your hometown behind, often leaves you with no roots at all if you keep traveling, after college, as I have. It is an interesting idea, then, to decide in the sixth month of pregnancy to go visit one's old friends, as Bert and Verona do, to see if they'd like to settle near them. It is a question I often ask myself...should I move back to California? What about Portland?... What if we just moved back somewhere on the I-5 corridor, which would be more civilized than here? How deep are my roots here after all, now that I have taught seven cohorts of 7th graders and my daughter is now four?

I really liked Bert and Verona and the way they made each other laugh, the way they comforted each other, and their subtle communication when they are guests in their friends' houses. If they were real people, I would have no doubt that once their child was born, they would slowly gather back a community of other new parents.

This movie makes me remember the last days of my marriage before we became parents, and what people said to us. Both ridiculous and moving. Read more ›

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Quirky And Slow But Worth A Look January 1, 2010

By Karen Joan VINE™ VOICE

Format:DVD

AWAY WE GO isn't a great movie but it is certainly entertaining. The story revolves around a thirty-something couple who are about to have their first child. When things don't go as planned, they decide to pull stakes and look for a new home. In its own way, AWAY WE GO reminded me of the Little Prince, who went from planet to planet, meeting strange new people. This couple's search unearths the odd, kind, bizarre, tragic, and confused, who unknowingly show the couple how normal they really are.

There are moments in AWAY WE GO that are very funny, and a few that are sad or touching. Most of the dialog is above average. All of the actors are credible and competent. Maya Rudolph, of SNL fame, is actually very good. The only other feature I've seen her in was Idiocracy, where she seemed to be playing a character more suited to Saturday Night Live. Here, she shows that she can play real characters instead of just caricatures.

The overall pacing of AWAY WE GO is a little slow, but it is still worth watching. I'd be reluctant to watch it twice, but I would if I had to. Three times is probably out of the question. RECOMMENDED.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Away We Go November 1, 2009

By Deborah Oliver

Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase

I truly enjoyed this film. I thought it had a really good message. It only had one problem. The language. I don't usually care about such things, but a friend was over to watch it with me and she was offended. Truly the language was not necessary to the movie and I think this is a shame. I know she should loosen up maybe, but using language for shock value is unnecessary.

However, over all I liked the picture.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars My favorite little known movie November 8, 2012

By Elizabeth

Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase

I absolutely love this movie! I saw it for the first time when I was pregnant with my oldest child and that's probably why it hit so close to home. However, that was years ago and I've loved it with every re-watching. This movie really does have it all. It's funny, touching, heartwarming, heartbreaking, and unexpected. I don't know why this movie isn't more widely known, but I guess it's just not your typical blockbuster. It's not slow and depressing the way some independent movies can tend to be, but neither is it a fast paced roller coaster. It's just good. It's just really good. It has a lot of familiar faces and the acting and story are great all around. Watch it, love it.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars On the road July 14, 2012

By Galina

Format:DVD

I am a fan of good comedies and independent smaller movies that are not about action and flashy special effects (which I also enjoy) but about looking closely at the characters, exploring the lives and desires of the ordinary people, and finding kindness, love, and gentle humor in every day situations. I like to follow the sympathetic characters on the journey of self-discovery and in search for the perfect place for them to live - just like the couple in Sam Mendes' comedy "Away We Go" 2009). Burt (John Krasinski) and Verona (Maya Rudolph) are 30-something educated, independent, intelligent, and what is quite unusual in the modern movies, truly loving each other unmarried couple who have been together for years and expecting their first child. The movie takes them on the road trip all around America. They leave Denver after having found out that Burt's cheerful and self-absorbed parents (Catherine O'Hara and Jeff Daniels) who live close by will be moving out of country to spend two years in Antwerp, Belgium and wont'be present at their grandchild's birth.

Burt and Verona will be visiting friends and relatives in Phoenix, Tucson, Madison, Montreal, and Miami trying to find the perfect place to raise their daughter and to be with the soul-mates. Sounds like a perfect independent comedy and fun, and I was ready to love it. After I finished watching, I see that it was supposed to be funny and touching, personal and realistic, subtle and offbeat, and it sure was at times but it did not completely succeed for me. I think it tried too hard. I found some of the characters not realistic and funny but obnoxious over the top cardboard figures, and some jokes felt awkward.... The film looks nice - Sam Mendes has a good eye for American beauty and he brings it it in every film he has made, and Away We Go is not en exception.

Two main characters, expecting parents Burt and Verona as played by John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph are believable and likable even if not always interesting. There is a story behind Verona's constant refusal to get married even though Burt keeps insisting and she is in love with him and sees him as her soul-mate. I assume it has to do with the death of her parents and the memories of the true happiness and closeness she and her younger sister had with them. Even if there is more than decade since they are gone, she still copes with their absence from her life. I read that Dave Eggers, the writer of the script, was 21 and living in Lake Forest, Illinois when he lost both his parents to cancer five weeks apart, leaving Eggers to raise his 8-year-old brother, Christopher. I think that he wrote the script that caught Mendes's attention coming to terms with his own past and his loss.

The best, the most moving scenes of the film are these where Verona opens up and recalls the scene of pure happiness from her childhood. Another memorable scene for me was the ending of the film. Some can see it as melodramatic but I think it was an appropriate and fitting end to the journey in search for Home. Away we Go is not a bad movie but as the rather short road movie, it is abrupt and inconsistent - some characters that we meet and their stories are quite interesting but we don't have time enough to learn about them because away we go to the next destination of Burt's and Verona's journey.

3.5 of 5 Read more ›