In Sam Mendes’ affable dramedy, Away We Go, John Krasinski goes on a cross-country road trip with his pregnant wife, played by Maya Rudolph, in search of the ideal place to settle down and raise a family. Ultimately, their journey turns out be more psychologically rewarding for the couple than they expect, as they’re forced to confront issues regarding their marriage and themselves. While the film and Krasinski’s TV work on the The Office are similar in their subtle, comic sensibility, Away We Go nonetheless marks a significant departure for the actor, enabling him to explore a slightly darker, more dramatic side of the emotional spectrum that say, Leatherheads.
“My job was pretty much done for me when Dave [Eggers] and Vendela [Vida] wrote the script,” Krasinski says. “It’s all there on the page when Dave and Vendela wrote it.”
“This story isn’t your typical ‘boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-gets-girl back’ deal. In the middle of the movie, there isn’t some huge gesture where the boy jumps from one boat to another to win her back. The entire movie, they’re in love, and there’s no real cataclysmic event that happens. But instead their biggest fear is that they’re so in love. Is that weird? I love it when Maya says, ‘We’re so in love. No one’s in love like us.’ And because of that, it’s so engaging.”
“Sam said it best when he said this was a movie about belonging, not about pregnancy. The pregnancy is just a catalyst to think about ourselves. Maya was saying when she was pregnant, all she could think about is how selfish she’d been up until then. And that sentiment is what this movie delves into. I mean, our jobs pay the bills, and we basically get along fine. But is that enough? Have you done enough with your life, you know. Who are you? What are you doing? Why are you doing it? Are you ready to bring someone else into this world? Those are all huge existential questions that I’m going through, my friends are going through. So for me, it’s completely representative of what’s going on. I have friends who have great jobs and kids and are still asking questions like, ‘Should I be in New York? Is this the person I really wanted to marry?’ I mean, huge things. I think that’s sort of a reality nowadays.”
It helped Krasinski, a convincing, memorable actor in his own right, that he was paired with Rudolph, who up until now, is known more for her stand-up and impersonations on Saturday Night Live than her bonafide acting chops. But her performance as Verona turns out to be a surprisingly nuanced one.
“I think Maya delivers this unbelievably honest performance, which is frustrating because everyday, she would tell me, 'By the way, I’m not an actress.' She was like that junior high school girl who was like, 'By the way, I failed this test' and is [later] like, ‘Oh, my god. I got an A!’ I hated that person because I was that person, ‘I think I got a C-minus. Yep, I did. On the nose.'”
Ultimately, the result is a film that Krasinski and crew can be proud of, one that holds its own in director Sam Mendes’s impressive film canon.
“I hope somebody packages this with Revolutionary Road in some relationship DVD, because it really is an incredibly yin and yang relationship. I talked about it with Sam, and he said, ‘Yeah, why do you think I chose to do this movie?’ It really is about two couples that have the chance to leave, and one of them does and one of them doesn’t. And it’s pretty much because one of the couples loves each other and the other doesn’t. And I think it’s this weird, amazing study in the power of love. Really, it’s what positive energy can do and what negative energy can do, and it’s a perfect study in each.”
