Unsure, we quirkily go

Is it just me or have we all gotten a lot quirkier lately? Certainly the last few years of pseudo-independent cinema have, what with Little Miss Sunshine, Juno and their overbearing, over-written ilk dominating the scene.

Can I give this new genre a name? Let’s call it quirkcore. (Common identifiers: hand-drawn lettering on the posters, twee folk music and “random” as a substitution for “funny.”) What started, I think, as an effort to make movie characters more “real” has instead made them more abstract, cultivating caricatures of weird into the worst type of pandering.

Away We Go, the new film by director Same Mendes (American Beauty), falls into this quirky bear trap, but pries its way out with a script and plotline a little richer than your average fare.

The film is about an aimless couple in their early 30s who are about to have their first baby. Burt (John Kraskinski, The Office) seems like a slacker. He has tenuous employment selling insurance annuities. Verona (Maya Rudolph) seems better equipped to deal with life, earning her bread through illustrating body parts. Both seem entirely unready to be parents, living in a ramshackle house, some windows filled in by cardboard. They do, however, love each other.

When Verona asks toward the film’s start, “Are we fuck-ups?” it’s more rhetorical than anything else. Over Burt’s disagreement, she answers for herself: “We’re fuck-ups.”

After finding out that Burt’s parents will be out of the country for two years, and therefore unable to help raise their baby, the couple decides to find a place to start over, to find the place to call home. Away they go.

We then follow Burt and Verona as they meet and discover the ways other families they know work. In Arizona, there’s hateful and cruel drunkenness on a family outing to the racetrack. In Madison, Wis., there’s glazed-over self-righteousness. In Ontario, there’s a loving, multicultural stew buttressed by underlying tragedy.

In each city the young couple learns something about the way they want to build their family, blasted through a wall of humorous scenes and, yes, quirky dialogue. There are no average people to be found here and it’s all very, very clever.

Eventually, Burt and Verona find their place and Away We Go ends on a happy note, their thoughtful journey done.

The script by Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida, the first for the famed modern lit couple, is solid, though not particularly memorable. As I mentioned earlier, its jokes and setup are straight out of the quirkcore canon, but the finely detailed characterizations of the two leads save it. Still, with this type of literary pedigree from Eggers, I was hoping for something truly unique.

Acting wise, both Krasinski and Rudolph fill their roles admirably, remaining likable even at the times when their characters’ selfishness becomes manifest. Rudolph, who doesn’t have a lot of dramatic acting experience under her belt, gives an especially nuanced and engaging performance.

Away We Go has the same problem with music as Garden State. Mostly tracked by the plaintive folk of Alexi Murdoch, the songs often overpower the emotional resonance of the scenes they support. This is lazy and generic. Just having a sad song play while someone looks out the window isn’t really enough.

As an addition to the quirkcore pantheon, Away We Go is enjoyable. But like all movies built into this subgenre, it distances itself from a true emotional center using self-effacing cleverness. It’s an easy position to take, but let’s try harder next time.