Man on Film: Away We Go

Well, I'm back.

I successfully avoided the internet almost entirely for the past two weeks--a detoxification if you will.

I guess we'll see how my 70-hour-per-week work schedule and the acquisition of a PS3 affect my output from here on out.

But let's move past the apology.

The Special Lady Friend and I saw Away We Go on Thursday.

We both really liked it.

Perhaps it is that the subject matter spoke to us, as thirtysomethings (I'm less than a month away...) who have yet to carve out their niche in adulthood, but this film was pretty great.

Sam Mendes's last film, Revolutionary Road, looked less than appealing to me. As his first feature film since 2005's solid-if-not-amazing Jarhead, Revolutionary Road struck me from afar as a suburban melodramatic period piece pandering for Oscar nominations.

With that in the back of my head, I went into Away We Go with virtually no expectations. I had only a vague idea as to what the film was going to be about. I knew Minnie Riperton's daughter would be in it. I knew it had John Krasinski. I may or may not have known that Dave Eggers (who I have mixed feelings about) and wife wrote the screenplay.

So with the lack of expectations I had for the film, I have to say I was enamored with Away We Go.

Krasinski and Rudolph aptly embodied the malaise of the go-nowhere thirtysomethings who have fallen astray of the socially-ordained life path. As their unmarried-and-expecting couple strikes out to find their place in the world, hilarity, hijinx, and self-realization ensue. Mendes has for the fifth straight time, made a film entirely unlike every other in his filmography. This is at the very least a sign of a skilled director, as this is at least four of five films that has excelled in their respective genres.

To say I was surprised by the wit, heart, and understated nature of the film would be an understatement. Perhaps it was the Juno-esque ad campaign that set the sights so low, but Away We Go was not saddled with horribly unrealistic dialogue, a cast of caricatures, and an irritatingly indie-pastiche soundtrack. Enriched by a subtler soundtrack almost entirely consistent of Alexi Murdoch tunes, the soundtrack compliments the film without distracting. No performances stick out as being anything less than on point.

Maybe having read this reaction will set your expectations impossibly high, but I cannot intimate to you how utterly surprised and delighted I was by this film.

Tragic Endings

Firstly, I feel compelled to apologize for my lackadaisical blog ethic. I was out of town (again) for the weekend. Chum Colclough got hitched, the latest in what seems to be my 475th friend to get married this year. Regardless of the never-ending nature of the train of weddings that have transpired, twas a nice wedding. Idyllic scene for the ceremony (short, sweet, and fairly secular, too--all of which are aces in my book). The reception was great, too. Kudos to Mr. and Mrs. Colclough.

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Now, on the plane on the way back, the girl sitting next to me busted out her copy of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, which got me to reminiscing. Well, not so much reminiscing as fuming.

First off, I should admit the following: it's been quite a few years since I read that book. The details of the book are hazy at this point. I remember a hilarious diagram relating to sliding across the floor of Dave and Toph's pad in socks. I remember laughing out loud a few times. I was pretty pleased with the reading experience.

That is until the end. Now many of you may have read the book. Maybe you understood the ending. I'm by no means a genius (I contemplated misspelling genius, there), but I generally 'get' the things I read. I don't think anyone would include Dave Eggers in an conversation with Thomas Pynchon or James Joyce or Fyodor Dostoevsky when talking about somewhat inaccessible authors, but I've read them and had a pretty good grasp on what their books meant.

So here is an open request to any of the readers of this blog, casual or rabid, who have read Dave Eggers's book. If you were able to make sense of the ending of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (which is such an irritating name that I'm somewhat bothered by just having to type it twice), share its meaning here.

My take is that Eggers got to the point where he had nothing left to write that was pertinent to the story, didn't really know how to close things out, and decided that he'd just write an obtuse beach frisbee ramble that could then seem like it was really deep when it was really just a surrender to the difficulty of ending a book well.

And I'm not necessarily blaming him for not being able to end a book because I know it can't be easy. I'm also semi-sure that he's a great guy. I'd probably get along with him well if we were talking. I just think the ending was an attempt to mask an inability to finish, and I know I'm not alone because others have shared this sentiment with me (although more often than not lacking the emotional involvement that I feel on the matter).

In a semi-interesting addendum, my famous friend, Sean, has a habit of putting me on the phone with celebrities when he's at Live Wire tapings or book signings, which is what he did when he was in line at an Eggers signing. Knowing my feelings on the book, he decided that he was not going to ask Eggers my question himself, so he put me on the phone with him and I asked him whether or not the ending actually meant anything, to which he replied that I should re-read the book. I, of course, responded with the assertion that I had read the ending three or four times and that I could only conclude that the faux-metaphorical ending was a cop out for not knowing how to end the book and that if I read A Heartbreaking Work again it meant that I would not be buying the book he was peddling. He still insisted that I needed to re-read the book, which leads me to one of two possible conclusions: I'm just not that bright (totally possible), or he was bristling at being called out.

So, can anyone out there explain this ending?